Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham), the University of British Columbia's Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics and the University of California, San Diego have observed that normal synaptic activity in nerve cells (the electrical activity in the brain that allows nerve cells to communicate with one another) protects the brain from the misfolded proteins linked to Huntington's disease. In contrast, excessive extrasynaptic activity (aberrant electrical activity in the brain, commonly not linked to communication between nerve cells) enhances the misfolded proteins' deadly effects. Scientists also observed that the drug Memantine, which is approved to treat Alzheimer's disease, successfully treated Huntington's disease in a mouse model by preserving norm...