Department of Health and Human Performance, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2019 May;126(5):577-583. doi: 10.1007/s00702-019-01990-5. Epub 2019 Mar 25.
Individuals living with multiple sclerosis frequently have impairments in mobility. These impairments are more pronounced when they engage in a cognitively demanding mobility tasks (i.e., walking and talking, obstacle clearance, etc). Based in part on the attentional capacity model of movement, these impairments are suggested to result from greater attentional demands. Yet, this model has not been directly tested in neurological populations. The objective of the study was to determine whether individuals with multiple sclerosis have greater attentional cost of movement across a range of tasks. This study tested probe reaction times of 20 individuals with multiple sclerosis and 26 healthy controls in five different movement tasks. The tasks were specifically chosen to challenge the perceptual-motor system based on variations in static and dynamic balance requirements. Participants were asked to verbally respond as quickly as possible to randomly presented audio probes during motor performance. Task order was randomized, and average probe reaction time was calculated for each task. The results showed tasks requiring dynamic stability had greater probe reaction times in both healthy controls and individuals with multiple sclerosis. Furthermore, individuals with multiple sclerosis had longer probe reaction times across all tasks compared to healthy controls. Yet, there was no relationship between probe reaction times and performance during a complex walking scenario. The results indicate the attentional capacity model may be inadequate to explain cognitive-motor interaction in people with multiple sclerosis. Future studies should address the theoretical framework of cognitive-motor interaction, which may influence the design of interventions aimed at improving performance in individuals with MS.
多发性硬化症患者经常存在移动障碍。当他们进行认知要求较高的移动任务（例如行走和说话、清除障碍物等）时，这些障碍会更加明显。基于运动注意力容量模型，这些障碍被认为是由于注意力需求增加所致。然而，该模型尚未在神经科人群中进行直接测试。本研究的目的是确定多发性硬化症患者在一系列任务中是否存在更大的运动注意力成本。本研究测试了 20 名多发性硬化症患者和 26 名健康对照者在 5 种不同运动任务中的探针反应时间。这些任务是根据静态和动态平衡要求的变化专门选择的，以挑战感知运动系统。参与者被要求在运动表现过程中尽可能快速地对随机呈现的音频探针做出口头反应。任务顺序是随机的，并为每个任务计算平均探针反应时间。结果表明，需要动态稳定性的任务在健康对照组和多发性硬化症患者中均具有更长的探针反应时间。此外，与健康对照组相比，多发性硬化症患者在所有任务中的探针反应时间都更长。然而，在复杂行走场景中，探针反应时间与表现之间没有关系。结果表明，注意力容量模型可能不足以解释多发性硬化症患者的认知运动交互作用。未来的研究应解决认知运动交互作用的理论框架，这可能会影响旨在提高多发性硬化症患者表现的干预措施的设计。
