Preserved cognitive processes in cerebellar degeneration.
Aspects of cognitive processing in patients with cerebellar degeneration (CD) were studied in order to examine the validity of recent findings that CD patients demonstrate deficits in visuospatial cognition and verbal-associative learning. Two groups of patients with CD were compared to stratified matched control groups on tests examining selective visual attention, visual spatial attention, mental rotation of geometric designs, and memory for the temporal order of words they were previously exposed to. CD patients performed similarly to their matched controls across all tasks. These results indicate that the reported cognitive deficits of CD patients are quite selective and need further specification in order to more fully describe their relationship to cerebellar dysfunction.
Dimitrov
M
M
Cognitive Neuroscience Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1440, USA.
Grafman
J
J
Kosseff
P
P
Wachs
J
J
Alway
D
D
Higgins
J
J
Litvan
I
I
Lou
J S
JS
Hallett
M
M
D001284:Atrophy; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002525:Cerebellar Cortex / Q000473:pathology; D002526:Cerebellar Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009410:Nerve Degeneration / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology