Counterfactual Thinking in Tourette’s Syndrome: A Study Using Three Measures

Pathophysiological evidence suggests an involvement of frontostriatal circuits in Tourette syndrome (TS) and cognitive abnormalities have been detected in tasks sensitive to cognitive deficits associated with prefrontal damage (verbal fluency, planning, attention shifting, working memory, cognitive...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioural neurology 2014-01, Vol.2014 (2014), p.1-7
Main Authors: Porta, Mauro, Inglese, Silvia, Poletti, B., Tomasini, Emanuele, Solca, Federica, Mastroianni, Silvia, Delli Ponti, Adriana, Zago, Stefano, Sartori, Giuseppe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Alternatives
Behavior
Case-Control Studies
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition Disorders - complications
Cognition Disorders - psychology
Decision making
Development and progression
Female
Humans
Hypotheses
Male
Medical examination
Memory
Middle Aged
Neural circuitry
Neuropsychological Tests
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Prefrontal cortex
Studies
Testing
Thinking
Tourette syndrome
Tourette Syndrome - complications
Tourette Syndrome - psychology
Tourette's syndrome
Young Adult
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Summary:Pathophysiological evidence suggests an involvement of frontostriatal circuits in Tourette syndrome (TS) and cognitive abnormalities have been detected in tasks sensitive to cognitive deficits associated with prefrontal damage (verbal fluency, planning, attention shifting, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and social reasoning). A disorder in counterfactual thinking (CFT), a behavioural executive process linked to the prefrontal cortex functioning, has not been investigated in TS. CFT refers to the generation of a mental simulation of alternatives to past factual events, actions, and outcomes. It is a pervasive cognitive feature in everyday life and it is closely related to decision-making, planning, problem-solving, and experience-driven learning—cognitive processes that involve wide neuronal networks in which prefrontal lobes play a fundamental role. Clinical observations in patients with focal prefrontal lobe damage or with neurological and psychiatric diseases related to frontal lobe dysfunction (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and schizophrenia) show counterfactual thinking impairments. In this work, we evaluate the performance of CFT in a group of patients with Tourette’s syndrome compared with a group of healthy participants. Overall results showed no statistical differences in counterfactual thinking between TS patients and controls in the three counterfactual measures proposed. The possible explanations of this unexpected result are discussed below.
ISSN:0953-4180
1875-8584
DOI:10.1155/2014/256089