Enhanced Learning and Memory in Patients with Retinopathy.

UNLABELLED

Mutations in the gene are associated with a diverse spectrum of retinopathies with phenotypic variability causing severe visual impairment. The gene has a role in retinal development and is expressed in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus, but its role in cognition has not been described before. This study compares cognitive function in retinopathy individuals with subjects with other retinopathies and the normal population.

METHODS

Neuropsychological tests of cognitive function were used to test individuals with and non- retinopathies and compare results with a standardised normative dataset.

RESULTS

retinopathy subjects significantly outperformed those with non- retinopathy in list learning tasks of immediate ( = 0.001) and delayed memory ( = 0.007), tests of verbal fluency ( = 0.017), verbal IQ digit span subtest ( = 0.037), and estimation test of higher execution function ( = 0.020) but not in the remaining tests of cognitive function ( > 0.05). retinopathy subjects scored significantly higher than the normal population in all areas of memory testing ( < 0.05) and overall verbal IQ tests ( = 0.0012). Non- retinopathy subjects scored significantly higher than the normal population in story recall, verbal fluency, and overall verbal IQ tests ( = 0.0016).

CONCLUSIONS

Subjects with retinopathy may have enhanced cognitive function in areas of memory and learning. Further work is required to understand the role of in cognition.