title: Personality traits in Huntington's disease: An exploratory study of gene expansion carriers and non-carriers.
abstract: Huntington's disease (HD) is associated with risk for developing psychiatric symptoms. Vulnerability or resilience to psychiatric symptoms may be associated with personality traits. This exploratory study, aimed to investigate personality traits in a large cohort of HD carriers and at risk gene-expansion negative individuals (HD non-carriers), exploring whether carrying the HD gene or growing up in an HD family influences personality traits. Forty-seven HD carriers, Thirty-nine HD non-carriers, and 121 healthy controls answered the Danish version of the revised NEO personality inventory. Comparisons between HD carriers and HD non-carriers were mostly non-significant but the combined group of HD carriers and non-carriers showed significantly higher scores on the facets: "hostility," "assertiveness," and "activity" and on the trait "Conscientiousness" relative to controls, "Conscientiousness" have been associated with resilience to psychiatric symptoms. Twelve HD carriers and non-carriers were classified as depressed and showed significantly lower scores on "Extraversion" and "Conscientiousness" and significantly higher scores on "Neuroticism," which are associated with vulnerability to psychiatric symptoms. Our findings suggest that, there is no direct effect of the HD gene on personality traits, but that personality assessment may be relevant to use when identifying individuals from HD families who are vulnerable to develop psychiatric symptoms. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
authors.affiliation: Neurogenetics Clinic, Danish Dementia Research Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ida Unmack
authors.initials: IU
authors.lastname: Larsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Erik Lykke
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Mortensen
authors.affiliation: Neurogenetics Clinic, Danish Dementia Research Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Section of Neurogenetics, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Tua
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vinther-Jensen
authors.affiliation: Neurogenetics Clinic, Danish Dementia Research Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Section of Neurogenetics, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jørgen Erik
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.affiliation: Neurobiology Research Unit and Center for Integrated Molecular Brain Imaging, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Gitte Moos
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Knudsen
authors.affiliation: Neurogenetics Clinic, Danish Dementia Research Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Asmus
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vogel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006579:Heterozygote; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D010551:Personality / Q000235:genetics*; D010554:Personality Disorders; D010555:Personality Inventory; D010556:Personality Tests; D010865:Pilot Projects
keywords: Huntington's disease; NEO-PI-R; personality; personality traits