Higher Levels of Extroverted Hostility Detected in Gene Carriers at Risk for Huntington’s Disease
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Evangelos Vassos; Dimitrios Vassilopoulos; Athina Kladi; Marios Panas
- Source
- Biological Psychiatry. 62:1347-1352
- Subject
- Adult
Male
Risk
medicine.medical_specialty
Personality Inventory
Hostility
Behavioral Symptoms
Disease
Irritability
Trinucleotide Repeats
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
Huntington's disease
MMPI
Surveys and Questionnaires
medicine
Humans
Psychiatry
Biological Psychiatry
Retrospective Studies
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
Retrospective cohort study
Middle Aged
medicine.disease
Huntington Disease
Female
medicine.symptom
Personality Assessment Inventory
Age of onset
Psychology
- Language
- ISSN
- 0006-3223
Background Numerous retrospective studies have reported the presence of psychiatric disorders at the prodromal or early stages of Huntington's disease (HD). However, most of the studies comparing gene carriers with non-carriers before the clinical manifestation of the illness have failed to reveal differences in the psychiatric manifestation. The objective of the present study was to detect behavioral and psychological features that differentiate gene carriers from non-carriers. Methods Eighty-one Greek patients at 50% risk for HD were recruited prospectively and examined by means of a semi-structured interview and four self-rated questionnaires. The study focused predominantly on hostility/irritability and obsessional behavior. Results Gene carriers had significantly higher extroverted hostility than non-carriers ( p = .005). The elevated level of hostility was unaffected by the proximity to the estimated age of onset. The remainder of the scales did not reveal significant differences. Conclusions Extroverted hostility, in particular criticism of others and delusional hostility, is increased in gene carriers well before the onset of clinical HD. Hostility is regarded as a personality dimension rather than as a behavioral pattern.