Ullrich Nicole J, Ayr Lauren, Leaffer Emily, Irons Mira B, Rey-Casserly Celiane
Departments of Neurology, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, MA 02446, USA.
J Child Neurol. 2010 Oct;25(10):1195-202. doi: 10.1177/0883073809358454. Epub 2010 Feb 5.
Difficulties with visual-spatial learning are frequently observed and often considered to be the hallmark of neurocognitive impairment in neurofibromatosis type 1. The computerized Arena Maze is a virtual environment task that has been developed as a human paradigm to the Morris Water Maze, which is used to evaluate spatial learning in animal models. The authors evaluated this task as a measure of spatial learning in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 compared with their unaffected siblings. Affected children were able to learn the task and navigate the virtual environment; however, they performed more poorly on standard measures of spatial learning and spatial working memory than their siblings. The group with neurofibromatosis type 1 demonstrated decreased proficiency in earlier target trials and had more difficulty in remembering target location. This study demonstrates the potential utility of a novel virtual task to assess spatial learning deficits in children with neurofibromatosis type 1.
视觉空间学习困难经常被观察到，并且通常被认为是1型神经纤维瘤病神经认知障碍的标志。计算机化竞技场迷宫是一种虚拟环境任务，它是作为莫里斯水迷宫的人类范式而开发的，莫里斯水迷宫用于评估动物模型中的空间学习。作者将此任务作为评估1型神经纤维瘤病儿童与其未受影响的兄弟姐妹相比的空间学习指标。受影响的儿童能够学习任务并在虚拟环境中导航；然而，他们在空间学习和空间工作记忆的标准测量上比他们的兄弟姐妹表现更差。1型神经纤维瘤病组在早期目标试验中表现出熟练程度下降，并且在记住目标位置方面有更多困难。这项研究证明了一种新型虚拟任务在评估1型神经纤维瘤病儿童空间学习缺陷方面的潜在效用。
