Type 1 diabetes, cognition and the neurologist: Exploring Go/No-Go and Maze tasks in the search for a practical screening tool

Abstract

AimsThe objectives were to use inexpensive and easy-to-apply tasks in order to investigate the differences between type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients and controls regarding attention and impulsivity, which are the basis for key-executive function components that are traditionally assessed using subjective, long and difficult to reproduce questionnaires. Additionally, we sought to correlate these differences with clinical characteristics, and to explore correlations between the tasks. MethodsWe compared the scores of 20 T1DM patients with 20 controls. The sample population included both males and females, aged 12–15 years. They were tested using a Go/No-Go paradigm and a Maze task, and correlations were verified between the groups. ResultsThe T1DM group had more anticipatory answers (AA) in the Go/No-Go task (p <0.05), and made more direction changes in Mazes (p<0.01). There was a correlation between non-severe hypoglycemia and AA (p=0.01), as well as between severe hypoglycemia and the number of touches in Mazes’ walls (p<0.05). Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c)>9% correlated with a greater number of alleys in Mazes (p<0.05). The tasks’ parameters were coherent among each test, and also between them. ConclusionsWe found indicators of inattention and impulsivity to be associated with T1DM, with inattention being closely related with hyperglycemia, and impulsivity being associated with hypoglycemia. Further research is needed to study diabetes-associated cognitive decline with more objective parameters, and to analyse the reliability and psychometric properties of the tasks proposed in this study.