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Effects of task difficulty during dual-task circle tracing in Huntington's disease
Eleftheria Vaportzis1, Nellie Georgiou-Karistianis, Andrew Churchyard
1School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia.
Insights
Huntington's disease (HD) impairs dual-task performance, with early-stage HD patients showing slower and less accurate responses than controls. This suggests attentional deficits in HD may stem from impaired automaticity in performing tasks.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neurology
Background:
- Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder impacting motor and cognitive functions.
- Impaired dual-task performance is a known consequence of HD, but research in this area remains limited.
- Understanding attentional deficits in early HD is crucial for developing targeted interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate dual-task performance in individuals with early-stage Huntington's disease compared to healthy controls.
- To analyze the effects of task complexity (direct vs. indirect circle tracing) and dual-tasking on performance.
- To explore the relationship between dual-task interference, speed-accuracy trade-offs, and attentional demands in HD.
Main Methods:
- 15 early-stage Huntington's disease participants and 15 healthy controls performed single and dual tasks.
- Tasks involved direct and indirect circle tracing, combined with serial subtraction (dual tasks).
- Performance metrics included speed and accuracy to quantify dual-task costs and interference.
Main Results:
- Huntington's disease participants were significantly slower and less accurate than controls across tasks.
- Both groups showed reduced performance in indirect compared to direct circle tracing.
- HD participants exhibited greater accuracy-based dual-task interference, particularly in direct tracing, and less speed-accuracy trade-off compared to controls.
Conclusions:
- Early-stage Huntington's disease significantly impacts dual-task performance, indicating heightened attentional demands even in simple tasks.
- Impaired automaticity in Huntington's disease may underlie observed attentional deficits and dual-task interference.
- Findings highlight the need for interventions addressing attentional and automaticity impairments in HD management.
Abstract:
Huntington's disease (HD) is associated with impairments in dual-task performance. Despite that, only a few studies have investigated dual-tasking in HD. We examined dual-task performance in 15 participants in the early stages of HD and 15 healthy controls. Participants performed direct circle tracing (able to view arm) and indirect circle tracing (arm obscured) either on their own (single tasks) or paired with serial subtraction by twos or threes (dual tasks). Overall, our results suggested that HD participants were significantly slower and less accurate than controls. Both groups were slower and less accurate when performing indirect circle tracing compared with direct circle tracing. HD participants experienced greater dual-task interference in terms of accuracy when performing direct circle tracing compared with indirect circle tracing. Despite that, controls were more inclined to speed-accuracy trade-offs compared with HD participants. Importantly, unlike controls, HD participants were not disproportionately faster when performing direct circle tracing as a single task compared with the dual-task conditions. Our results suggest that simple tasks place greater attentional demands on HD participants compared with controls. These findings support that impaired automaticity may be responsible for some of the attentional deficits manifested in HD.
