Attentional and mnemonic deficits associated with infectious disease in humans

Background. Infectious diseases are accompanied by behavioural and psycholo gical changes that suggest the implication of the central nervous system. A mong them, cognitive alterations have been reported, but their specificity and implication in everyday life are still largely unclear. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate and specify the everyday memory disturban ces in sick human subjects and to determinate the role of fever in the appe arance of these alterations. Methods. The study was carried out in a military training centre for naval recruits. Ninety-one volunteer subjects, healthy (N = 30) or suffering from flu-like syndrome, with (N = 29) or without fever (N = 32), participated i n this experiment and were administered a cognitive test (the ERBMT) accord ing to a cross-sectional design for assessing various aspects of everyday m emory. Results. Sick subjects were specifically impaired in daily memory tasks tha t require the temporary management of a large amount of information. This i mpairment was similar for the feverish and apyretic sick subjects who both differed from the controls. Conclusion. These findings suggest that infectious disease disturbs the com plex cognitive processes that might be associated with attentional function s. Moreover, these results show that fever is not a necessary condition for the appearance of these cognitive disturbances.