Evaluation of structural brain changes and their correlation with cognitive functions in adults with type 1 diabetes stratified by the age of diabetes onset: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background and aim: T1DM has a significant effect on brain structure and function. Age of onset of diabetes may be a critical factor mediating this impairment. We evaluated young adults with T1DM, stratified by the age of onset, for structural brain changes, hypothesizing that there may be a spectrum of white matter damage in these participants, compared to controls.

Methods: We recruited adult patients (20-50 years of age at the time of study enrolment) with onset of T1DM before 18 years of age and at least ten years of schooling, along with controls having normoglycaemia. We compared the Diffusion Tensor Imaging parameters between patients and controls and evaluated their correlations with cognitive z scores, and glycemic measures.

Results: We evaluated 93 individuals, 69 [age: 24.1 (±4.5) years, gender: 47.8% men, education: 14.7 ± 1.6 years] with T1DM and 24 [age: 27.8 (±5.4) years, gender: 58.3% men, education: 14.6 ± 1.9 years] without T1DM (controls). We did not find any significant correlation of fractional anisotropy (FA) with age at T1D diagnosis, duration of diabetes, current glycemic status, or domain-wise cognitive z scores. The FA was lower (but not statistically significant) in participants with T1DM when evaluated for the whole brain, individual lobes, hippocampi and amygdala.

Conclusion: Participants with T1DM do not show a significant difference in the brain white matter integrity when evaluated in a cohort of young adults with relatively few microvascular complications compared to controls.

Keywords: Cognition; DTI; MRI; South Asian; Type 1 diabetes.