Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:00:56.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Decline in working memory associated with HIV infection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

J. C. Stout*
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
D. P. Salmon
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
N. Butters
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
M. Taylor
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
G. Peavy
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
W. C. Heindel
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
D. C. Delis
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
L. Ryan
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
J. H. Atkinson
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
J. L. Chandler
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
I. Grant
Affiliation:
San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego; Department of Psychology, San Diego State University; Department of Psychology, Brown University; the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Julie C. Stout, Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.

Synopsis

HIV infection has been associated with decline in a number of cognitive functions that are components of ‘working memory’. Thus, tests of working memory that require the interaction of these components may be particularly sensitive to cognitive dysfunction that arises from HIV infection. To assess this possibility, working memory was examined in 147 HIV-seropositive (HIV+) and 38 HIV-seronegative (HIV−) males using the Reading Span Test and the Digit Span subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R). Speed of information processing, a component of some working memory tasks, was assessed with a version of the Sternberg Memory Scanning task. Results indicated that symptomatic HIV+ subjects were impaired relative to HIV− control subjects on the Reading Span and Digit Span tests. Asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic HIV+ groups exhibited a trend toward impairment on these tests, and on the whole, a greater proportion of HIV+ subjects than HIV− subjects were impaired. The groups did not differ significantly in information processing speed. These results indicate that deficits in working memory are apparent in at least a subset of HIV-infected individuals. These deficits are most apparent in symptomatic HIV+ individuals, but the decline may begin during the asymptomatic phase of infection.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association (1987). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd edn, Revised. American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. (1986). Working Memory. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, A. (1992). Working memory. Science 255, 556559.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelsohn, M., Mock, J. & Erbaugh, J. K. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 4, 561571.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Centers for Disease Control (1987). Revision of the CDC surveillance case definition for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 36 (Suppl. 15), 1s15s.Google Scholar
Clifford, D. B., Jacoby, R. G., Miller, J. P., Seyfried, W. R. & Glicksman, M. (1990). Neuropsychometric performance of asymptomatic HIV-infected subjects. AIDS, 4, 767774.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cummings, J. L. (1990). Introduction. In Subcortical Dementia (ed. Cummings, J. L.), pp. 316. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Daneman, M. & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 19, 450466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daneman, M. & Carpenter, P. A. (1983). Individual differences in integrating information between and within sentences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 9, 561584.Google Scholar
Grant, I. (1990). The neuropsychiatry of human immunodeficiency virus. Seminars in Neurology 10, 267274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grant, I. & Heaton, R. K. (1990). Human immunodeficiency virus-Type 1 (HIV-1) and the brain. Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychology 58, 2230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grant, I., Olshen, R. A., Atkinson, J. H., Heaton, R. K., Nelson, J., McCutchan, A. A. & Weinrich, J. D. (1993). Depressed mood does not explain neuropsychological deficit in HIV infected persons. Neuropsychology 7, 5361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heaton, R. K., Velin, R. A., Atkinson, J. H., Gulevich, S. J., McCutchan, J. A., Hesselink, J. R., Chandler, J. L. & Grant, I. (1995). Neuropsychological impairment in an HIV+ male cohort. In Perspectives on Behavioral Medicine (ed. Baum, A. and Stein, M.). Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates: Hove, East Sussex, England.Google Scholar
Hinkin, C. H., van Gorp, W. G., Satz, P., Weisman, J. D., Thommes, J. & Buckingham, S. (1992). Depressed mood and its relationship to neuropsychological test performance in HIV-1 seropositive individuals. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 14, 289297.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jernigan, T. L., Archibald, S., Hesselink, J. R., Atkinson, J. H., Velin, R. A., McCutchan, J. A., Chandler, J., Grant, I. & the HNRC Group. (1993). Magnetic resonance imaging morphometric analysis of cerebral volume loss in human immunodeficiency virus infection. Archives of Neurology 50, 250255.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaemingk, K. L. & Kaszniak, A. W. (1989). Neuropsychological aspects of human immunodeficiency virus infection. Clinical Neuropsychologist 3, 309326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, E. M., Robertson, L. C., Sorensen, D. J., Jagust, W. J., Mallon, K. F. & Chirurgi, V. A. (1993). Speed of memory scanning is not affected in early HIV-1 infection. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 15, 311320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattis, S. (1988). Dementia Rating Scale. Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.: Odessa, FL.Google Scholar
Miller, E. N., Selnes, O. A., McArthur, J. C., Satz, P., Becker, J. T., Cohen, B. A., Sheridan, K., Machado, A. M., van Gorp, W. G. & Visscher, B. (1990). Neuropsychological performance in HIV-1-infected homosexual men: the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). Neurology 40, 197203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Navia, B. A. (1990). The AIDS dementia complex. In Subcortical Dementia (ed. Cummings, J. L.), pp. 181198. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Navia, B. A., Cho, E.-S., Petito, C. K. & Price, R. W. (1986 a). The AIDS dementia complex. II. Neuropathology. Annals of Neurology 44, 525535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navia, B. A., Jordan, B. D. & Price, R. W. (1986 b). The AIDS dementia complex. I. Clinical features. Annals of Neurology 19, 517524.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peavy, G., Jacobs, D., Salmon, D. P., Butters, N., Delis, D. C., Taylor, M., Massman, P., Stout, J., Heindel, W. C., Kirson, D., Atkinson, J. H., Chandler, J. L., Grant, I. & the HNRC Group. (1994). Verbal memory performance of patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection: evidence of subcortical dysfunction. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 16, 508523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Petito, C. K. (1988). Review of central nervous system pathology in human immunodeficiency virus infection. Annals of Neurology 23, Suppl. S5457.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B. W., Gibbon, M. & First, M. B. (1990). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. American Psychiatric Association Press: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Sternberg, S. (1966). High-speed scanning in human memory. Science 153, 652654.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sternberg, S. (1975). Memory scanning: new findings and current controversies. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 27, 132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1987). Wechsler Memory Scale – Revised. The Psychological Corporation: New York.Google Scholar
Wilkie, F. L., Eisdorfer, C., Morgan, R., Loewenstein, D. A. & Szapocznik, J. (1990). Cognition in early human immunodeficiency virus infection. Archives of Neurology 47, 433439.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed