EEG in prediction of Huntington's chorea. An eighteen year follow-up.

One of the more tragic features of Huntington's chorea is the delayed appearance of symptoms until affected mdwiduals are well into, or even past, the age of reproductive capacity. It would be desirable for a number of reasons to be able to identify carriers of the gene responsible for this trait before they reach reproductwe age. Patterson et al. (1948) exammed 26 offspring of diagnosed chorea patients w~th a battery of tests in an attempt to identify those who would develop the disease m later years EEG exammatmn was felt to have prognostic value Predictions were made which were based on (a) the degree of EEG abnormality, (b) the presence of paroxysmal features, and (c) the presence of slow wave activity over the motor areas. Twelve offspring with the greatest amount of EEG abnormahty were designated "most likely to develop chorea" Seven with lesser amounts of abnormahty were given a "bare possibility of developing the disease". For seven offspring w~th normal EEGs a prediction was made that they "probably would never develop Huntington's chorea". The purpose of this study is to present a climcal followup of predictions for offspring of Huntington's chorelcs made by EEG 18-20 years ago, and to evaluate those predictions in relation to current neurologic status of those offspring.