Memory, attention and individual profile of inter-hemispheric functional asymmetry in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases

Abstract

Disturbances of the central nervous system (CNS) occur ratherfrequently in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases (SRD).Among symptoms of the CNS dysfunction, cognitive impairmentplays a very important role. We studied 96 patients with differentforms of SRD. The profile of brain inter-hemisphericfunctional asymmetry was studied by a special standardized protocol.All the examined patients can be divided into 4 groups:right-profile subjects (44.8%), predominantly right-profile subjects(41.6%), mixed profile subjects (12.5%) and predominantlyleft -profile subjects (1.1%). Some specific features of memoryand attention were identified depending on inter-hemisphericfunctional asymmetry profile.

Keywords

• systemic rheumatic diseases
• cognitive impairment
• inter-hemispheric functional asymmetry