YOSBELY Soto Soto shares a corrugated iron hut with her two sons on the shores of Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo. The heat inside has been unbearable since her husband left her a few years ago, taking the air conditioner with him. The 32-year-old has to beg for food to feed herself and her children, something made all the harder because she is shunned by her community. So too are her brother and sister, who like Yosbely have Huntington’s disease…

This article first appeared in Brain on 25 July 2017. To continue reading, click here.