Closing-in Phenomenon in Huntington's Disease: A Neuropsychological Marker of Frontal/Executive Dysfunction

In visuo-constructional tasks, patients may reproduce drawings near-to or superimposed on a model, showing the so-called "Closing-in" (CI), often ascribed to a defect in inhibitory control. CI has been described in neurological conditions, but no studies have explored CI in Huntington's disease (HD), a neurodegenerative disorder often involving the frontal cortical-subcortical circuits. We searched for the occurrence of CI in HD patients and systematically investigated its correlates to find a clinical marker of the frontal/executive dysfunctions in the early examination of HD patients.