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Youth with multiple sclerosis (MS) often experience cognitive impairment and psychosocial disturbances. We describe the relationship between memory function, psychosocial skills, and brain volume in 32 patients with pediatric-onset MS and 30 controls. Amygdala volume was significantly lower in patients compared with controls. In general, poorer memory was associated with reduced functional communication skills and reduced amygdala volume. Greater amygdala volume in patients correlated with parent-reported functional communication and social skills. Adjusting for whole-brain volume, right amygdala volume was positively associated with visual memory; left amygdala volume was a stronger predictor of parent-reported social skills.

Objective: We evaluated performance on the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (PCNB), a tool assessing accuracy and response time across four cognitive domains, alongside the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), a measure of processing speed commonly used in MS. We determined whether performance decrements are more likely to be detected on measures of accuracy versus response time in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS). Methods: Performance on the SDMT, accuracy on PCNB tests belonging to four domains (executive function, episodic memory, complex cognition, social cognition), and response

Highlights Age- and sex-matched groups were compared on episodic memory and emotion identification outcomes. POMS patients showed reduced accuracy on a test of word recognition. POMS patients were slower to recognize faces that were recently presented. Total and regional hippocampal, amygdala, and thalamic volumes are lower in POMS. Memory for words was associated with both hippocampal and thalamic volume.