ATTENTION AND VERBAL-LEARNING IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC-FATIGUE-SYNDROME

Former neuropsychological studies with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) patients evaluated a broad range of cognitive functions. Several, but not all, reported subtle attentional and memory impairments suggesting possible mild cerebral involvement. In this study, a battery of atten tional tests and a verbal memory task were administered to 20 CFS pati ents and 22 healthy controls (HC) in order to clarify the specific nat ure of attention and memory impairment in these patients. The results provide evidence for attentional dysfunction in patients with CFS as c ompared to HC. CFS patients performed more poorly on a span test measu ring attentional capacity and working memory. Speeded attentional task s with a more complex element of memory scanning and divided attention seem to be a sensitive measure of reduced attentional capacity in the se patients. Focused attention, defined as the ability to attend to a single stimulus while ignoring irrelevant stimuli, appears not to be i mpaired. CFS patients were poorer on recall of verbal information acro ss learning trials, and poor performance on delayed recall may be due to poor initial learning and not only to a retrieval failure.