Information processing speed and attention in multiple sclerosis: Reconsidering the Attention Network Test (ANT)

The Attention Network Test (ANT) assesses attention in terms of discrepancies between response times to items that differ in the burden they place on some facet of attention. However, simple arithmetic difference scores commonly used to capture these discrepancies fail to provide adequate control for information processing speed, leading to distorted findings when patient and control groups differ markedly in the speed with which they process and respond to stimulus information. This study examined attention networks in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) using simple difference scores, proportional scores, and residualized scores that control for processing speed through statistical regression.

Patients with relapsing-remitting (N = 20) or secondary progressive (N = 20) MS and healthy controls (N = 40) of similar age, education, and gender completed the ANT.

Substantial differences between patients and controls were found on all measures of processing speed. Patients exhibited difficulties in the executive control network, but only when difference scores were considered. When deficits in information processing speed were adequately controlled using proportional or residualized score, deficits in the alerting network emerged. The effect sizes for these deficits were notably smaller than those for overall information processing speed and were also limited to patients with secondary progressive MS.

Deficits in processing speed are more prominent in MS than those involving attention, and when the former are properly accounted for, differences in the latter are confined to the alerting network.