Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Psychol Health. 2011 Jun;26(6):765-80. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2010.493611. Epub 2011 May 24.
Cognitive complaints are common among subjects with fibromyalgia (FM). Yet, few studies have been able to document these deficits with cognitive tasks. A main limitation of existing studies is that attention has been broadly defined and the tasks used to measure attention are not designed to cover all the main components of the attentional system. Research on attention has identified three primary functions of attention, known as alerting, orienting and executive functioning. This study used the attentional network test-interactions task to explore whether and which of the three attentional networks are altered in FM. Results showed that FM patients have impaired executive control (greater interference), reduced vigilance (slower overall reaction time) and greater alertness (higher reduction in errors after a warning cue). Vigilance and alertness showed several relations with depression, anxiety and sleep quality. Sleep dysfunction was a significant predictor for alertness, whereas there were no significant predictors for vigilance. These findings highlight that the treatment of sleep difficulties in FM patients may help with some of their cognitive complaints.
认知主诉在纤维肌痛（FM）患者中很常见。然而，很少有研究能够通过认知任务记录这些缺陷。现有研究的主要局限性在于注意力被广泛定义，并且用于测量注意力的任务并非旨在涵盖注意力系统的所有主要组成部分。关于注意力的研究已经确定了注意力的三个主要功能，分别称为警觉、定向和执行功能。本研究使用注意网络测试-交互任务来探讨 FM 是否以及改变了哪三个注意网络。结果表明，FM 患者的执行控制能力受损（干扰更大）、警觉性降低（整体反应时间较慢）和警觉性增强（警告提示后错误减少）。警觉性和注意力与抑郁、焦虑和睡眠质量有多种关系。睡眠功能障碍是警觉性的一个重要预测因素，而警觉性没有显著的预测因素。这些发现强调，治疗 FM 患者的睡眠困难可能有助于减轻他们的一些认知主诉。
