Neuropsychiatry of Huntington's disease and other basal ganglia disorders

Degenerative diseases of the basal ganglia, such as Huntington's disease (HD), Parkinson's disease, and Wilson's disease, are characterized by motor cognitive and psychiatric manifestations. HD, in particular can be considered a paradigmatic neuropsychiatric disorder that has all three components of the Triadic Syndromes: dyskinsia, dementia, and depression. The authors examine the phenomenology prevalence, and management of psychiatric disturbances occuring in diseases of the basal ganglia. They address psychiatric conditions such as depression, mania, psychosis, obsessive-compulsive disorders, aggression, irritability, apathy, sexual disorders, and delirium, discussing subtleties of diagnosis, and making reference to more unusual disorders of the basal ganglia, such as postencephalitic parkinsonism and Fahr's disease.