University of Verona
Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement

Author Of 1 Presentation

Neuropsychology and Cognition Late Breaking Abstracts

LB1209 - A tablet-based videogame for capturing slowing processing speed in multiple sclerosis patients: a pilot study (ID 2064)

Speakers
Presentation Number
LB1209
Presentation Topic
Neuropsychology and Cognition

Abstract

Background

Slowing information processing speed (IPS) is a biomarker of neuronal damage in patients with MS (pwMS). Computerized tools allow testing different cognitive load conditions that might reveal initial IPS inefficiencies before the appearance of formal cognitive impairment (CI) as assessed with paper-and-pencil neuropsychological tests.

Objectives

To further explore the feasibility of computerizes tools, we developed a tablet-based videogame for quickly and efficiently measuring IPS in pwMS without formal CI with the aim to assess its specificity and sensitivity in testing IPS in different cognitive load conditions in pwMS as compared to healthy controls (HC).

Methods

Forty-five pwMS (age:36.8±9.3; edu:13.9±3.1; F=33) without CI and 20 matched HC (age:34.4±12.3; edu:17.5±2.5; F=7) underwent 3 videogame levels of increasing cognitive load. Reaction times (RTs) and accuracy were recorded and subjected to mixed-repeated ANOVAs. PwMS also underwent neuropsychological tests of IPS, attention, executive functioning (EF), and memory; correlation analyses between RTs of each level and the neuropsychological tests were performed.

Results

Significant differences between pwMS and HC were found as a function of increasing cognitive load conditions, on both RTs (p<.001) and accuracy (p<.001), with pwMS being on average significantly slower (p=.003) and less accurate (p=.004) than HC. Significant correlations between RTs of each level and composite score of IPS-attention (level 1: p=.006; level 2: p=.009; level 3: p=.002) and EF (level 1: p=.03; level 2: p=.002; level 3: p=.002), but not memory (all ps>.12), were found.

Conclusions

Measuring IPS efficiency in pwMS with computerized tools (i.e., videogame) could be useful in both screening and monitoring disease progression and response to therapies within a telemedicine perspective. The inverse relationship between increasing cognitive load and slowing IPS efficiency might be related either to over-recruitment or dysfunction of neural networks (i.e., neural plasticity) which may induce cognitive inefficiency even before the appearance of formal CI.

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