The Nature of Memory Impairment in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

DeLuca, John
Christodoulou, Christopher
Diamond, Bruce J.
Rosenstein, Elliot D.
Kramer, Neil
Ricker, Joseph H.
Natelson, Benjamin H.

¹Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Department of Neurosciences, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey—New Jersey Medical School, and Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Laboratory, Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation, West Orange, New Jersey
²Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey—New Jersey Medical School, and Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Laboratory, Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation
³Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Laboratory, Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation, and Department of Psychology, William Paterson University
⁴Department of Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
⁵Department of Neurosciences, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey—New Jersey Medical School.

⁶Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to John DeLuca, PhD, ABPP, Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Laboratory, Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation, 1199 Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ 07052. E-mail: [email protected].

This study was supported by Grants R01-MH52810 and AI-32247 and by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Henry H. Kessler Foundation.

Received Date: February 12, 2002; Revised Date: October 15, 2002; Accepted Date: October 19, 2002

Rehabilitation Psychology 49(1):p 62-70, February 2004.

Objective

Examine whether memory impairment in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is due to deficits in acquisition, storage, or retrieval.

Study Design

Prospective, between-groups design.

Participants

Twenty-nine CFS participants without psychiatric comorbidity (CFS-noPsych) and 22 participants with an Axis I psychiatric diagnosis since CFS onset. Two control groups: 30 healthy persons and 19 participants with rheumatoid arthritis.

Main Outcome Measures

After being equated for initial learning, recall and recognition were assessed after 30- and 90-min delays.

Results

Both CFS groups required more trials to learn the word list than did healthy controls. The CFS-noPsych group performed significantly below healthy controls on recall but not on recognition. Learning/acquisition correlated with measures of complex information processing and not with depressive symptomatology or fatigue.

Conclusions

Impaired verbal learning and memory in CFS is primarily a result of deficient acquisition.