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Speed of information processing in patients with multiple sclerosis
1Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. rk@psych.purdue.edu
Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
|July 22, 1998
Summary
Multiple sclerosis (MS) significantly slows cognitive processing speed. Patients with MS exhibited slower response times (RTs) that increased with task difficulty, suggesting a general cognitive slowing effect.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disease.
- Cognitive impairment is a common symptom of MS, affecting processing speed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the impact of MS on cognitive processing speed.
- To investigate the relationship between MS and response times (RTs) in speeded tasks.
Main Methods:
- Administered speeded cognitive tasks to 11 patients with MS and 11 healthy controls.
- Measured and compared response times (RTs) between the two groups.
Main Results:
- Patients with MS demonstrated significantly slower RTs compared to controls.
- The increase in RTs for MS patients showed a systematic, power-function relationship with control RTs.
Conclusions:
- MS leads to a general slowing of cognitive processes.
- The observed cognitive slowing in MS may share mechanisms with age-related cognitive decline, potentially involving neural noise.
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