Cognitive deficits in multiple sclerosis: Auditory and visual attention and inhibitory control

Abstract

Background: A growing body of evidence has been paid to the cognitive impairment in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). However, studies concerning cognitive functions in MS have also yielded con icting results. This study investigates the attention and inhibitory control functions in patients with MS and their relationship with other clinical features such as depression and fatigue in these patients.Methods: Participants included 80 patients with MS and 60 healthy controls. The attention and inhibitory control, fatigue, and psychiatric screening in all subjects were studied respectively with the Integrated Visual and Auditory Continuous Performance Test (IVA-CPT), Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).Results: Patients with MS performed the IVA-CPT task more poorly than the healthy control group (P < 0.001). However, multiple regression analysis did not show any signi cant relations between disease duration, FSS, and HADS on attention and inhibitory control.Conclusion: Inhibitory control and attention are signi cantly impaired in patients with MS. Finding the basics of cognitive de cits in MS have potentially important clinical implications for developing better cognitive rehabilitation strategies.

Theta and alpha oscillations may underlie improved attention and working memory in musically trained children

“…This could be especially important to consider in educational settings. Taking into account proposals that consider cognition to emerge as an interaction among the brain, the body, and the environment (Newen et al, 2018), it seems to be a good idea to potentiate activities that are more integral in school curricula, activities that inte- precise training programs and intervention strategies to enhance these capacities in people from the general population as well as people with diseases, such as neuropsychiatric patients who have deficits in these skills in auditory and visual modality, such as people with ADHD (Brydges et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2021), multiple sclerosis (Figueroa-Vargas et al, 2020;Simani et al, 2023), schizophrenia (Green et al, 2000;Wood et al, 2006), andautism (Larrain-Valenzuela et al, 2017;Lin et al, 2017). Finally, these insights can also inspire those working on the development of artificial intelligence systems that seek to emulate cognitive processes such as attention and WM to produce complex and integrative systems based on neurobiological findings (Lindsay, 2020;Macpherson et al, 2021).…”