The influence of alcohol dependence syndrome severity on the features of visual-spatial information processing in Corsi, pathway and mental rotation tests

Abstract

Objective. To investigate the influence of alcohol dependence syndrome (ADS) severity on visual-spatial processing parameters assessed with CBT, TMT and MRT, and to develop a prognostic model for classifying disease stages based on neuropsychological indices.

Materials and methods. The study included 444 practically healthy volunteers (comparison group), 125 patients with the initial stage of ADS (group 1) and 152 patients with the middle stage of ADS (group 2). All participants underwent CBT, TMT and MRT tests in the automated software package NeuroSMG including. Statistical analysis of data was performed using R software environment version 4.3.3. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), Kraskell — Wallis test and linear mixed-effects models were used to compare groups. The rpart library was used to create a decision tree model.

Results. Patients with ADS showed a significant increase in response time and number of errors in all tests compared to the comparison group. In the CBT test, a decrease in the ability to remember and reproduce spatial sequences was observed. In the TMT test, patients with ADS showed longer maze time and increased path length. In the MRT test, patients with ADS showed longer task completion times and more errors. Based on the key scores of CBT, TMT and MRT tests, a decision tree model was developed with an accuracy of 84.11 % (95 % CI (80.30—87.45)).

Conclusion. The study confirmed that the severity of alcohol dependence syndrome is associated with impaired visual-spatial function, as manifested by slower reaction times and increased errors. The developed decision tree model based on neuropsychological tests demonstrates high accuracy in classifying the stages of alcohol dependence and can be used for diagnostics and monitoring of the disease.