Processing speed test: Results from a Japanese normative sample of healthy participants compared with a US normative sample.

Background: The Processing Speed Test (PST), a validated iPad®-based cognitive screening test for MS, has been applied to the cognitive assessment of Japanese MS patients using US normative data.
Methods: To develop PST normative data from Japanese healthy volunteers and compare the PST score distribution between Japanese and US healthy volunteers, 254 healthy Japanese-speaking volunteers were enrolled and stratified by age (20-65 years). Potential participants with a Mini-Mental State Examination score < 27 were excluded. PST raw scores (total correct) were from the Japan cohort and compared with age-restricted US normative data and propensity score-matched data created by matching sex, age, and educational level from a published study of 428 healthy participants. PST score distributions and standardized z-scores were compared using t-test and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test statistics.
Results: The mean age of the Japan cohort was 44.1 years. The PST scores of Japanese volunteers were significantly different from those of the age-restricted (mean ± SD 61.8 ± 10.1 vs 53.7 ± 10.8; p < 0.001) and the propensity score-matched US cohort (62.1 ± 10.1 vs 53.3 ± 10.6; p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Regression analyses centered on US normative data could underestimate disease severity in Japanese MS patients, suggesting that separate normative data should be considered for each population sample.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest MN has received consultant fees from Biogen; and travel and/or speaker honoraria from Biogen, Takeda, Mitsubishi Tanabe, Chugai, Alexion, and Novartis, YM has nothing to disclose, AA and ME were former employees of Biogen, NB, MK, IC, CdM, and JRW are employees of and may hold stock/stock options in Biogen, SMR has authored IP around the MS PATHS software; is a stockholder and scientific officer of Qr8 Health; and has received royalties and grant funding from Biogen, National MS Society, Department of Defense, and NIH.
(Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)