Prospective memory in patients with relapsing remitting Multiple Sclerosis

Prospective Memory (PM) is a set of cognitive abilities that allow us to remember to perform planned actions or delayed intentions. It requires the recall of the content of the planned task in the form of an intention to be able to execute it at the 4 appropriate moment. Previous studies have yielded conflicting results as some show that MS patients have difficulty in remembering the content of intentions and others in the process of self-initiation of delayed intentions. Moreover, the relationship between PM and clinical variables also remains unclear. The aim of this study is to investigate PM in Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) with two experimental tests that evaluate different aspects of the MP. Another aim of the current study was to analyse the relationship between PM and demographic variables and clinical variables. Methods: 36 outpatients with a diagnosis of RRMS attending to two centers specialized in multiple sclerosis clinics, were recruited. Thirty five healthy volunteers formed the contrast group (CG), matched for age, gender and education with the MS patients. A neuropsychological test battery that included two techniques for measuring PM was administered. The Cóndor test consists of reading a text whilst simultaneously executing many actions. In the Multitask Prospective Memory (MTPM), the participant must remember to initiate a complex intention, which was previously planned. The test yields formation scores of the intention, initiation, plan retention capacity and finally two execution scores. A depression scale (Beck Depression Inventory, BDI-II) was administered and physical disability was revealed using the Expanded Disability Status Scale. Results: In the RRMS group, the majority of patients (80.6%) had none or minimal signs of depression according to BDI-II classification criteria. Seventy five % of patients were in full- or half-time employment, 13.9% were unemployed or in occasional employment and 11.1% were house wives or retired on grounds of age. With respect to cognitive performance 47.2% of MS patients presented cognitive impairment. RRMS patients and the CG did not differ significantly on age and years of formal education. Groups showed no significant differences in distribution of Gender. Patients scored significantly lower than the CG on the Cóndor?s total score, p = 5 .007, d = 0.7. On the MTPM, the CG obtained significantly more points for intention formation than patients, p = .027, d = 0.5. Sixty-three percent of patients versus 88.5% of the CG self-initiated the intention, p = .014. Patients who obtained a higher score on Formation, self-initiated more often, p = .012. Education, disease progression and depression measure with the Beck Depression Inventory, significantly and mildly correlate with the Cóndor and the MTPM. Physical disability was only associated with the intention planning phase of MTPM. Conclusion: PM appears to be impaired in patients with RRMS. A deficit was found in planning and self-initiation of planned actions. Self-initiation was influenced by planning quality. Education, disease progression and depression were shown to influence recall and execution of future intentions. Physical disability was only associated with the intention planning phase. Some previous studies have not found a significant relationship between physical disability and cognitive measures. This study suggests that PM can be affected in patients with a low level of physical impairment. Results highlight the need for objective assessment of PM in RRMS patients to be able to detect any disorder in the initial stages of the disease and start appropriate rehabilitation. Amongst the limitations of this study, the observational, non-blind design must be acknowledged, as well as the small sample size. Also, the instruments used to assess PM are relatively new and studies of their psychometric properties are lacking. Nevertheless, the use of an instrument like El Cóndor is notable, given that it was developed for local population.Fil: Cores, Evangelina Valeria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Vanotti, Sandra Ines. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Psicología; Argentina. Instituto de Neurociencias Buenos Aires S. A.; ArgentinaFil: Orlando, Garcea. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina; Argentina. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Agudos "Ramos Mejía"; ArgentinaFil: Osorio, Mabel. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Ministerio de Salud. Hospital Interzonal de Agudos "Eva Perón"; ArgentinaFil: Politis, Daniel Gustavo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Ministerio de Salud. Hospital Interzonal de Agudos "Eva Perón"; Argentin

Influence of nationality on the Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS)

OBJECTIVE: In answer to the call for improved accessibility of neuropsychological services to the international community, the Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS; MS) was validated in multiple, non-English-speaking countries. It was created to monitor processing speed and learning in MS patients, including abbreviated versions of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, California Verbal Learning Test, 2nd Edition, and the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test, Revised. The objective of the present study was to examine whether participant nationality impacts performance above and beyond common demographic correlates. METHOD: We combined published data-sets from Argentina, Brazil, Czech Republic, Iran, and the U.S.A. resulting in a database of 1,097 healthy adults, before examining the data via multiple regression. RESULTS: Nationality significantly predicted performance on all three BICAMS tests after controlling for age and years of education. Interactions among the core predictor variables were non-significant. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated that nationality significantly influences BICAMS performance and established the importance of the inclusion of a nationality variable when international norms for the BICAMS are constructed

Very late-onset friedreich ataxia with laryngeal dystonia

Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) is an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive gait and limb ataxia, cerebellar, pyramidal and dorsal column involvement, visual defects, scoliosis, pes cavus and cardiomyopathy. It is caused by a homozygous guanine-adenine-adenine (GAA) trinucleotide repeat expansion in intron 1 of the frataxin gene (FXN) on chromosome 9q13-q21.1. Onset is usually in the first or second decade of life; however, late-onset cases of Freidreich ataxia (LOFA), after the age of 25 years, and very late-onset cases of Freidreich ataxia (VLOFA), after the age of 40 years, have been reported. VLOFA is quite rare and usually presents a milder progression of the disease. We report the case of a 64-year-old woman affected with VLOFA whose first symptoms (balance and gait disturbances) occurred at the age of 44 years. At the age of 62 years, she started complaining of a slowly progressive dysphonia showing the clinical aspects of laryngeal dystonia. Molecular analysis showed a 210- and 230-trinucleotide GAA repeat expansion in the two alleles of the FXN gene. Laryngeal dystonia has been reported only in very few cases of ataxia syndrome and never before in FRDA patients. It may represent a rare clinical manifestation of VLOFA thus confirming the high variability of the clinical spectrum of FRDA

Nota a Teopompo FGrHist 115 F 90: Cimone δωροδόκος

In un passo della Contra Iulianum San Cirillo, vescovo di Alessandria d’Egitto, riporta un passo dello storico Teopompo di Chio, in cui si discute della dorodokia di cui fu accusato Cimone verso la fine degli anni Sessanta del V secolo. Il passo costituisce il frammento 90 di Teopompo nella raccolta di Felix Jacoby (FGrHist 115 F 90). Questo contributo intende esaminare tale testimonianza, inquadrandola nel contesto dell’opera di San Cirillo e, in particolare, del ritratto che egli tratteggia di Cimone, per verificarne la corretta attribuzione a Teopompo e l’attendibilità delle informazioni in essa riportate; nel contempo intende esaminare il giudizio espresso dalle restanti fonti antiche sulle accuse di corruzione mosse a Cimone, mettendolo a confronto con quello teopompeo.In an excerpt of the Contra Iulianum, Saint Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt, reports the passage of the historian Theopompus of Chios, where dorodokia which Cimon was accused of in the late Sixties of the V century, is debated. The passage is referred to as Theopompus’s fragment 90 in Felix Jacoby’s collection (FGrHist 115 F 90). This article examines such account, contextualising it in Saint Cyril’s work and, particularly, in the portrait he draws of Cimon, in order to verify the proper attribution to Theopompus and the reliability of the information contained in it; in the meantime, it aims to examine the judgement of other ancient sources about the allegations of corruption against Cimon, in comparison with the one expressed by Theopompus

Introduzione alla sezione tematica

I contributi raccolti in questo nucleo tematico della rivista Historikà 2019 sono stati discussi nell’ambito di un ciclo di seminari dal titolo «La città in frammenti», tenutisi nel corso del 2018 presso l’Università del Piemonte Orientale, nell’ambito del corso magistrale di Storia Greca. La città in questione è Atene, dunque i lavori qui raccolti riguardano aspetti della storia istituzionale, politica ed evenemenziale della polis attica e dei suoi leaders, analizzati o ricostruiti attraver..