Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome and Language Fluency Deficits

Marianne Gorlyn, et al., published “Language Fluency Deficits in Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome” in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology on December 12, 2022. The goal of the study was to ascertain whether language fluency deficits could be explained by poor performance in these other neurocognitive areas as well as to determine whether they are secondary to poor memory and slowing rather than an independent deficit.

The researchers carried out an ancillary analysis of data from recent neurocognitive studies of individuals with post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS), along with comparison samples of healthy volunteers (HC) and patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). It was found that fundamental verbal abilities, memory, and processing speed were all considerably associated with fluency performance. The fluency deficits of MDD patients when compared to those of HC were warranted by these covariates while the poorer fluency performance of PTLDS patients, comparative to both other groups, was not.

The researchers conclude that language fluency seems to be a separate area of neurocognitive deficit within the category of PTLDS symptoms.

For more information:

Read the study in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology.

Read more about Lyme and neurocognitive disease.

Read more about PTLDS.