Cognitive disturbances in patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Neurology
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disease.
• Cognitive impairment is a recognized symptom in MS, particularly in the chronic progressive (CP) form.
• The cognitive profile of relapsing remitting (RR) MS requires further elucidation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the neuropsychological performance of RR MS patients with age-, education-, and gender-matched controls.
• To characterize the specific cognitive deficits in RR MS.
• To compare the cognitive profile of RR MS with that of CP MS.

Main Methods:

• Neuropsychological testing battery administered to 42 RR MS patients and 24 controls.
• Tests were selected for sensitivity to cognitive impairments in CP MS.
• Performance metrics included information-processing speed, verbal fluency, problem-solving, and memory recall.

Main Results:

• RR MS patients demonstrated deficits in information-processing speed, verbal fluency, problem-solving, and memory recall.
• Unlike some CP MS patients, RR MS patients showed minimal impairment in visual confrontation naming and no perseverative responding.
• The pattern of deficits in RR MS aligns with subcortical dementia profiles, distinct from cortical dementia features seen in some CP MS patients.

Conclusions:

• RR MS patients exhibit a distinct pattern of cognitive deficits, primarily affecting processing speed and memory.
• These impairments are less severe than those observed in CP MS patients.
• Disease duration, disability severity, and disease course may influence the severity of cognitive disturbances in MS.