ANALOGICAL REASONING IN MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Abstract

Objective
 Cognitive impairment is common in multiple sclerosis
 (MS) and occurs at all stages of the disease with
 a significant negative effect on daily life activities,
 vocation, social relationships and quality of life.
 Analogical reasoning involves identifying a common
 relational system between two situations and then
 generating further inferences driven by these shared
 commonalities that is a fundamental aspect of human
 cognition people routinely use in everyday life, in a
 wide range of problem-solving contexts and decision
 making. The aim of the study is to evaluate analogical
 reasoning skills in individuals with MS.
 Material and Method
 This observational case-control study covers 30
 MS patients without any cognitive complaint and
 30 age-, sex- and education-matched healthy
 person. All participants were underwent a thorough
 neuropsychological evaluation with emphasis on
 working memory, attention, executive functions and
 concept formation and analogical reasoning.
 Results
 MS patients’ performance on working memory,
 attention and executive functions were worse in
 comparison to the control group. In general no
 difference was observed regarding concept formation,
 abstraction, cognitive flexibility and analogical
 reasoning between MS patients and healthy controls.
 However MS patients with advanced age exhibited a
 poor performance in these tasks which also showed a
 moderate correlation with disease duration.
 Conclusion
 Cognitive dysfunction can be detected even in MS
 patients who are relatively young and have low
 disability, without any cognitive complaints. Although
 early cognitive reserves are sufficient for performance
 in analogical reasoning tasks similar to that of healthy
 controls, they show significant deterioration with
 advancing age.