Neural Noise

EEG biomarkers in Huntington's disease: resting-state and sleep EEG systematic review

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  • A systematic review summarizes resting-state and sleep EEG alterations as biomarkers in Huntington’s disease.1
  • EEG biomarkers and resting-state or sleep EEG are electrophysiology methods with review-level evidence.1 1

Weekly enrichment (2026-07-20)

  • The systematic review (Clinical Neurophysiology, February 2026; PMID 41747657) synthesized EEG biomarkers across resting-state, sleep, medication-response and clinical-correlation studies in Huntington’s disease and premanifest gene carriers.23
  • It searched PubMed, Web of Science and EMBASE and included 23 studies: 20 resting-state, 6 sleep, 3 medication-related and 20 clinical-correlation (categories overlap); most included a control group and were small.24
  • Resting-state EEG commonly showed reduced alpha power and altered delta activity in patients, while theta- and beta-band results were more variable.24
  • Sleep EEG studies consistently showed reduced theta power; EEG was largely unaffected by medication, aside from higher spindle density in unmedicated patients in one study.2
  • Greater cognitive and motor impairment was associated with reduced alpha and theta power, with abnormalities detectable even in premanifest stages.24
  • The authors conclude EEG is a promising noninvasive biomarker for early diagnosis and monitoring but call for larger samples and standardized methods.23
  • Supporting microstate work (20 unmedicated patients vs 20 controls) found reduced connectivity, increasing dimensionality with severity, and class A/B increases with class C/D decreases correlating with cognition.5
  • A mechanistic EEG review frames Huntington’s as an excitation/inhibition imbalance and reports polysomnography abnormalities in premanifest carriers (sleep efficiency 81% ± 8% vs 96% ± 4% in controls, ~40% more nocturnal awakenings, and REM percentage falling from 22% to 16%).6

Footnotes

  1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388245726002002?dgcid=rss_sd_all ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. https://europepmc.org/article/MED/41747657 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2026.2111701 ↩ ↩2

  4. https://huntingtonsdiseasenews.com/news/eeg-analysis-help-track-huntingtons-progression-review-finds/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2020.10.006 ↩

  6. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14145010 ↩

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