Attention impairment in patients with cervical dystonia: An attention network test study

Kun Xia; Yongsheng Han; Lanlan Zhou; Sheng Hu; Rao Rao; Shu Shan; Lei Hua

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.952567

Attention impairment in patients with cervical dystonia: An attention network test study

Front Psychol. 2022 Aug 4:13:952567. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.952567. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Kun Xia¹, Yongsheng Han^{1

2}, Lanlan Zhou³, Sheng Hu⁴, Rao Rao¹, Shu Shan¹, Lei Hua¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Neurology, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China.
² Department of Neurology, Anhui Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Hefei, China.
³ Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China.
⁴ School of Medical Information Engineering, Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China.

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate attentional network functional characteristics in patients with cervical dystonia (CD).

Methods: A total of 29 patients with CD and 26 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. All subjects participated in the study and underwent the Attention Network Test (ANT), which evaluated the efficiencies of three independent attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control), as well as reaction time (RT) and accuracy.

Results: Significant differences between CD patients (9.86 ± 27.95 ms) and HCs (33.62 ± 23.41 ms) were observed in the alerting network (t = -3.40, p < 0.05). In contrast, the orienting network (t = 0.26, p = 0.79), executive control network (Z = -0.55, p = 0.58), total mean reaction time (t = -2.6, p = 0.79), and total accuracy rate (Z = -1.67, p = 0.09) showed no significant differences between the two groups.

Conclusion: Patients with CD showed a significant deficit in the alerting network. However, they did not show any deficits in the orienting or executive control network. In addition, the alerting, orienting, and executive control network functions of CD patients were all affected by the severity of torticollis, especially the alerting network function.

Keywords: alerting; attention; attention network test; cervical dystonia; cognitive.