Abstract
To assess attention functions in patients with Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) , we tested 15 genetically confirmed MJD patients, and 15 control subjects matched for age, education, and global cognitive status. We administered the Frontal assessment battery (FAB) , category and letter fluency, digit forward and backward span, visual memory forward and backward span, Kana pick-out test, and Trail Making Test (TMT) . The MJD patients showed significantly lower scores in the letter fluency, digit backward span, and Kana pick-out test. The results of the tests concerning frontal function suggest that the deficits of the divided attention in the MJD patients. On the other hand, the deficits were not observed in the tasks of category fluency, “Similarities, Motor series, Confliction instruction, Go-NoGo, Prehension behavior” in the FAB, digit forward span, visual memory span, and TMT-A, B, B/A. We speculate that the MJD patients have the dysfunction not of the alternating attention but of the divided attention involving the multiple processing. The dysfunction in MJD patients is considered to be due to cerebello-cortical circuit damage occurring in MJD.
