Attention impairment in patients with cervical dystonia: An attention network test study

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate attentional network functional characteristics in patients with cervical dystonia (CD). METHODS: A total of 29 patients with CD and 26 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. All subjects participated in the study and underwent the Attention Network Test (ANT), which evaluated the efficiencies of three independent attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control), as well as reaction time (RT) and accuracy. RESULTS: Significant differences between CD patients (9.86 ± 27.95 ms) and HCs (33.62 ± 23.41 ms) were observed in the alerting network (t = −3.40, p < 0.05). In contrast, the orienting network (t = 0.26, p = 0.79), executive control network (Z = −0.55, p = 0.58), total mean reaction time (t = −2.6, p = 0.79), and total accuracy rate (Z = −1.67, p = 0.09) showed no significant differences between the two groups. CONCLUSION: Patients with CD showed a significant deficit in the alerting network. However, they did not show any deficits in the orienting or executive control network. In addition, the alerting, orienting, and executive control network functions of CD patients were all affected by the severity of torticollis, especially the alerting network function.