Neuro-psychological Tests COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT IN MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: RECENT FINDINGS F. Katsou1, D. Moraitou1, M. Tsolaki2 1 Department of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2 Department of Neurology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Introduction Multiple sclerosis is a neurodegenerative demyelinating disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. Cognitive dysfunction’s prevalence rates vary from 43% to 72% from the onset to later phases of the disease (Chiaravalloti & DeLuca, 2008). Deficits and symptoms are different in subtypes and the findings are controversial, making cognitive and neuropsychological assessment a challenge. The main aim of present study was to clarify the “areas” of impairment in MS patients as regards to cognitive functions and social cognition, on the basis of a critical review of very recent research findings. Based on this clarification, the study aimed also to examine the psychometric qualities of the neuropsychological tools that are used to estimate these types of impairment in MS patients. Method Conclusions Keywords: Cognition Social Cognition Deficits Neuropsychological Tests + Multiple Sclerosis Databases: PubMed Scopus Restrictions: Articles published from 2006 to 2016 No reviews and MRI focused research Cognitive abilities that need to be examined: Information processing speed Working memory Verbal Memory Visual Memory Attention Verbal Fluency Everyday Functioning Social cognition Functioning Most reliable tests 57 articles SDMT (Symbol Digit Modalities Test) PASAT (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task) CVLT-II (California Verbal Learning Test-II) BVMT-R (Brief Visual Spatial Memory Test-Revised) ANT-I (Attention Network Test-Interaction) WLG (Word List Generation) MSNQ (MS Neuropsychological Questionnaire) TASIT (The Awareness of Social Inference Test) , FAUX PAS, MASC (Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition) Results Most sensitive cognitive domains: Information processing speed & working memory (Glanz et al., 2012; Hankomaki et al., 2014) Cognitive decline even in early phase of MS & differences in subtypes Cognitive deterioration in IPS, working memory, attention, verbal fluency Cognitive deterioration and decline Fairly recent findings (Henry et al., 2009) Decline in Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotion recognition (Banati et al., 2010) Decline is connected to cognitive impairment (Genova et al., 2016) Social Cognition decline SDMT is a brief, sensitive and reliable over time measuring tool (Parmenter et al., 2007; Sonder et al., 2014) Brief batteries are more efficient and can be used cross-culturally (Dusankova et al., 2012; Spedo et al., 2015; Walker et al., 2016) Neuro-psychological Tests Others: FRRT can discriminate between groups Short version of BRB (Selective Reminding Test, PASAT-3 and SDMT) covers many cognitive domains References Banati et al. (2010). Social cognition and Theory of Mind in patients with relapsing‐remitting multiple sclerosis. European Journal of Neurology, 17(3), 426-433. Chiaravalloti, N. D., & DeLuca, J. (2008). Cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis. The Lancet Neurology, 7(12), 1139-1151. Dusankova et al. (2012). Cross cultural validation of the Minimal Assessment of Cognitive Function in Multiple Sclerosis (MACFIMS) and the brief international cognitive assessment for multiple sclerosis (BICAMS). The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 26(7), 1186-1200. Correspodence: Flora Katsou fdkatsou@psy.auth.gr