This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal

Gail Shor-Posner, PhD; Robert Morgan, PhD; Frances Wilkie, PhD; Carl Eisdorfer, MD, PhD; Marianna K. Baum, PhD

Arch Neurol. 1995;52(2):195-198.

Abstract
Objective
To determine whether information processing speed is influenced by change in plasma cobalamin status in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 disease.

Design
A longitudinal study, using autoregression, to evaluate the relationship between plasma cobalamin status and change in information processing speed assessed by Posner Letter Matching, Sternberg Short-Term Memory Search, Figure Visual Scanning and Discrimination of Pictures, and continuous paired associates learning tasks.

Setting
University of Miami (Fla) School of Medicine from fall 1987 through summer 1991.

Participants
Eighty-four human immunodeficiency virus type 1—infected homosexual men aged 20 to 55 years. None of the subjects displayed acquired immunodeficiency syndrome—defining symptoms at baseline; over the course of the study, 9.5% progressed to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

Main Outcome Measures
Biochemical measurement of plasma cobalamin; performance on information processing speed tasks.

Results
Significant improvement in the Posner Letter Matching NI-PI (Name Identity minus Physical Identity) differential was associated with becoming cobalamin adequate or remaining adequate. Becoming cobalamin deficient, in contrast, was associated with a significant decline in the speed of accessing overlearned name codes.

Conclusion
Normalization of plasma cobalamin inadequacy in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 disease may provide significant improvement in the speed of retrieving overlearned information from long-term memory.

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Epidemiology and Public Health (Drs Shor-Posner and Baum), and Psychiatry (Drs Morgan, Wilkie, and Eisdorfer), University of Miami (Fla) School of Medicine.

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Risk Factors for Cognitive Impairment in HIV-1-Infected Persons With Different Risk Behaviors
De Ronchi et al.
Arch Neurol 2002;59:812-818.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Mild Cognitive Impairment and Risk of Mortality in HIV-1 Infection
Wilkie et al.
J. Neuropsychiatry Clin. Neurosi. 1998;10:125-132.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT