PLoS ONE (Jan 2021)

Cognitive decline in Huntington's disease in the Digitalized Arithmetic Task (DAT).

  • Marine Lunven,
  • Jennifer Hamet Bagnou,
  • Katia Youssov,
  • Alexis Gabadinho,
  • Rafika Fliss,
  • Justine Montillot,
  • Etienne Audureau,
  • Blanche Bapst,
  • Graça Morgado,
  • Ralf Reilmann,
  • Robin Schubert,
  • Monica Busse,
  • David Craufurd,
  • Renaud Massart,
  • Anne Rosser,
  • Anne-Catherine Bachoud-Lévi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253064
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16, no. 8
p. e0253064

Abstract

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BackgroundEfficient cognitive tasks sensitive to longitudinal deterioration in small cohorts of Huntington's disease (HD) patients are lacking in HD research. We thus developed and assessed the digitized arithmetic task (DAT), which combines inner language and executive functions in approximately 4 minutes.MethodsWe assessed the psychometric properties of DAT in three languages, across four European sites, in 77 early-stage HD patients (age: 52 ± 11 years; 27 females), and 57 controls (age: 50 ± 10, 31 females). Forty-eight HD patients and 34 controls were followed up to one year with 96 participants who underwent MRI brain imaging (HD patients = 46) at baseline and 50 participants (HD patients = 22) at one year. Linear mixed models and Pearson correlations were used to assess associations with clinical assessment.ResultsAt baseline, HD patients were less accurate (p = 0.0002) with increased response time (pConclusionsDAT is fast, reliable, motor-free, applicable in several languages, and able to unmask cognitive decline correlated with striatal atrophy in small cohorts of HD patients. This likely makes it a useful endpoint in future trials for HD and other neurodegenerative diseases.