SCIENCE@home

Structural Grey and White Matter Differences in Patients with Type 1 Diabetes and Impaired Awareness of Hypoglycaemia.

Nicole Stantonyonge,F. Sampedro,J. Méndez,S. Martínez-Horta,A. Chico,B. Gómez-Anson

Published 2020 in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism

ABSTRACT

CONTEXT Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is associated with an increased risk of cognitive decline, where severe hypoglycaemia (SH) and impaired awareness of hypoglycaemia (IAH) may play a role. While there is evidence of a possible association between IAH and brain damage, the potential brain changes remain poorly characterized by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). OBJECTIVE To investigate whether there are structural brain differences in a group of T1D patients with IAH compared with normal awareness of hypoglycaemia (NAH). DESIGN General practice, population-based, cross-sectional study. (July 2018 to July 2019). SETTING Endocrinology Department, Hospital Santa Creu i Sant Pau. PARTICIPANTS A total of 40 T1D patients (20 each with IAH and NAH) matched for age, sex, T1D duration and education level.Main Outcome Measures: Using different neuroimaging techniques, we compared whole-brain grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) differences. We used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and cortical surface area analysis methods to assess GM differences, and fractional anisotropy (FA) to assess WM differences. RESULTS Compared to patients with T1D-NAH, patients with T1D-IAH had reduced GM volumes and cortical surface areas, especially in frontal and parietal regions (p<0.05 corrected), and also showed reduced FA values in major WM tracts. The observed MRI differences correlated with both SH frequency and IAH severity. CONCLUSIONS MRI for patients with T1D show that IAH is associated with brain changes involving both GM and WM. Further research is needed to elucidate whether the observed differences are and cause of a consequence of increased SH episode frequency and increased IAH severity.

PUBLICATION RECORD

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-50 of 50 references · Page 1 of 1

CITED BY

Showing 1-10 of 10 citing papers · Page 1 of 1