A - 76 Association between Sleep Apnea Risk and Cognitive Performance in Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D): Evidence from the Glucog Study.

OBJECTIVE: Evidence suggests that individuals with type 1 diabetes (T1D) experience higher rates of sleep apnea compared to the general population, which may contribute to higher rates of cognitive dysfunction in T1D.

METHOD: 206 participants with T1D (mean [range] age = 45.48 [18-84] years, 53.40% female, 60.20% college degree or higher, mean [range] HbA1c = 7.5 [5.1-12.3] %) were recruited from four diabetes centers. Measures included 10 self-administered online cognitive tasks (testmybrain.org) that assessed nonverbal reasoning, visual working memory, cognitive flexibility, processing speed, visual memory, sustained attention, and basic psychomotor speed, as well as the STOP-BANG inventory to assess obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) risk. Correlation coefficients and partial correlations were used to examine the relationship between OSA risk and cognitive performance.

RESULTS: 20.39% of the sample was at high risk for OSA. Higher STOP-BANG scores were significantly correlated with poorer performance on digit symbol coding, flicker change detection, matrix reasoning, multiple object tracking, visual paired associates, gradCPT, letter-number switching, and choice reaction time r(204) = -0.15 to -0.42, p < 0.01. After controlling for age, OSA risk was associated with poorer performance on matrix reasoning, pr(203) = -0.16, p = 0.02, and visual paired associates pr(203) = - 0.14, p = 0.04.

CONCLUSIONS: Findings revealed an association between OSA risk and poorer performance on measures of nonverbal reasoning and visual memory that persisted after controlling for age. Future research is needed to better understand the mechanisms by which OSA risk impacts cognitive performance in this population.