Word finding, prosody and social cognition in multiple sclerosis

Abstract

Background: Impairments in speech and social cognition have been reported in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS), although their relationships with neuropsychological outcomes and their clinical utility in MS are unclear. Objectives: To evaluate word finding, prosody and social cognition in pwMS relative to healthy controls (HC). Methods: We recruited people with relapsing MS (RMS, n = 21), progressive MS (PMS, n = 24) and HC (n = 25) from an outpatient MS clinic. Participants completed a battery of word-finding, social cognitive, neuropsychological and clinical assessments and performed a speech task for prosodic analysis. Results: Of 45 pwMS, mean (SD) age was 49.4 (9.4) years, and median (range) Expanded Disability Severity Scale score was 3.5 (1.0-6.5). Compared with HC, pwMS were older and had slower information processing speed (measured with the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, SDMT) and higher depression scores. Most speech and social cognitive measures were associated with information processing speed but not with depression. Unlike speech, social cognition consistently correlated with intelligence and memory. Visual naming test mean response time (VNT-MRT) demonstrated worse outcomes in MS versus HC ( p = .

Case report: Pragmatic impairment in multiple sclerosis after worsening of clinical symptoms

“…There is evidence of processing speed and attention impairment during relapses ( Morrow et al, 2011 ) and mild executive dysfunction following acute use of corticosteroids ( Prado and Crowe, 2019 ), as in the present case. Moreover, performance in Attentional Matrices is also influenced by psychomotor speed, which was found to be associated with communication abilities ( Yap et al, 2022 ). More generally, several cognitive phenotypes regarding attention/executive functions, language, and multidomain deficits have been recently identified in MS patients and appear to be relevant for clinical purposes ( De Meo et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Moreover, MS patients may show impairment also in language and communication abilities ( Sonkaya and Bayazit, 2018 ; Feenaughty, 2022 ). More in detail, a review by Renauld et al (2016) showed that MS is commonly associated with impaired performance in verbal fluency and sentence comprehension tasks, and later studies found that communication difficulties in MS are related to impairments in processing speed ( Yap et al, 2022 ) and in executive functioning ( Delgado-Álvarez et al, 2021 ). This evidence suggests an association between cognitive and linguistic domains.…”

Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis

“…In other recent studies, cognitive impairment may not be so severe, but definitely present with word finding difficulty and visual object naming [143]. The reduction in formation processing speed that is observed with cognitive loss in MS can be independent of mood disorders, and impairments in visual object meaning perception may appear uniquely in individuals with MS [143]. It is estimated that loss of cognitive function in MS occurs in approximately sixty-five percent of individuals and can affect processing of information, attention, memory recall, and other executive functions [144].…”

“…In some patient cohorts of MS that included both men and women, the prominent clinical phenotype was characterized by severe cognitive impairment that was progressive in nature [142]. In other recent studies, cognitive impairment may not be so severe, but definitely present with word finding difficulty and visual object naming [143]. The reduction in formation processing speed that is observed with cognitive loss in MS can be independent of mood disorders, and impairments in visual object meaning perception may appear uniquely in individuals with MS [143].…”

A systematic review and meta-analysis of socio-cognitive impairments in multiple sclerosis

“…The majority of patients showed deficits at nonsocial tasks, particularly in the executive domains. www.nature.com/scientificreports/ and depression 31 . Three studies showed a significant positive correlation between aToM and cognition (higher aToM scores were associated with better performance on long-term storage and retrieval tasks, the Symboldigit-modalities test 32 ; and semantic fluency and IQ 27 ).…”