If you have a diagnosis of SCA3 but are not symptomatic then I suggest buying and printing out these research reports and taking them to your doctor. Keep in mind this is only in animal research and very often what works in animals turns out to be less efficacious in humans. The flip side to that is the fact that this drug is cheap and already heavily prescribed for anxiety so human safety is well established.
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Citalopram Reduces Aggregation of ATXN3 in a YAC Transgenic Mouse Model of Machado-Joseph Disease.
I have an email in to one of the lead researchers who is active in the US with the National Ataxia Foundation with that exact question. I did read a few lines in the second study that talked about the clearance of other proteins. If this were a molecule that was specifically engineered to treat SCA3 I would think the answer would be no, but in this case we have yet another "generic" molecule so I would find it more than likely that it could be helpful to all polyQ disorders.
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It is fascinating to me that just one year ago when I contacted the leading researchers in the National Ataxia Foundation about trehalose and clearing proteins instead of genetic repair, I got the proverbial cold shoulder, and suddenly Dr. Orr, Zoghbi, and Hansen are all studying different methods of protein clearing.
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Visit to the Neurologist
Riluzole or Citalopram
