Neuro-ophthalmic syndromes and processing speed in multiple sclerosis

The impact of prior neuro-ophthalmic syndromes on the performance on vision-based neuropsychological tasks in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) is unknown. Two groups of MS participants, one with (Msos+) and the other without (Msos-), a history of neuro-ophthalmic syndromes, underwent neuropsychological assessment and were compared with healthy age- and education-matched controls (HC). Participants with Msos+ performed significantly worse on the symbol digit modalities test than the Msos- (P < 0.03) and the HC groups (P < 0.01) and coding (P < 0.01). A clinical history of neuro-ophthalmic syndromes is associated with reduced performance on visual processing speed tasks.Supported partially by a PhD fellowship from Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia Portuguesa (Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal, fellowship number SFRH/BD/45591/2008) to S. L. Costa. J. Almeida was supported by Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal, project grant PTDC/MHC PCN/3575/2012, and programa COMPETE.