Functional MRI Shows Diabetes-induced Cognitive Deficits in Elderly
Key clinical point: Elderly patients with type 2 diabetes had diminished frontal brain activity that correlated with memory and executive function deficits.
Major finding: Compared with controls, patients with diabetes performed significantly worse on the backward digit span, the digit span, and the Stroop Color and Word Test, and had less fMRI activation in several frontal brain areas.
Data source: Cross-sectional study of 30 elderly patients with type 2 diabetes and 37 healthy controls.
Disclosures: The research was funded by the Beijing New Medical Discipline Based Group, the Natural Science Foundation of China, the Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, and the New Century Excellent Talents in University. The researchers declared no conflicts of interest.
Patients with diabetes also had less fMRI activation in several frontal brain areas, including the right superior frontal gyrus, the bilateral medial frontal gyrus, and the inferior frontal gyrus. Furthermore, the diabetes group had lower fMRI activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 13) in the 1-back versus 0-back (working memory) condition, and had less activation of the left middle frontal gyrus and the superior frontal gyrus in the 2-back versus 0-back comparison, they added. “These findings indicate that with increasing task difficulty, additional frontal brain regions might have been recruited to play compensatory roles to complete the harder task,” they said.
Larger longitudinal studies would be needed to confirm the findings and explore their potential for predicting early cognitive changes in patients with type 2 diabetes, they noted.
The research was funded by the Beijing New Medical Discipline Based Group, the Natural Science Foundation of China, the Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, and the program for New Century Excellent Talents in University. The researchers declared no conflicts of interest.
