Austin Health

Insulin resistance is associated with reductions in specific cognitive domains and increases in CSF tau in cognitively normal adults.

Author(s)
Laws, Simon M
Gaskin, Scott
Woodfield, Amy
Srikanth, Velandai
Bruce, David
Fraser, Paul E
Porter, Tenielle
Newsholme, Philip
Wijesekara, Nadeeja
Burnham, Samantha
Doré, Vincent
Li, Qiao-Xin
Maruff, Paul
Masters, Colin L
Rainey-Smith, Stephanie R
Rowe, Christopher C
Salvado, Olivier
Villemagne, Victor L
Martins, Ralph N
Verdile, Giuseppe
Publication Date
2017-08-29
Abstract
Growing evidence supports the hypothesis that type 2 diabetes (T2D) increases the risk of developing dementia. Experimental evidence from mouse models demonstrates that the induction of T2D/insulin resistance (IR) can promote the accumulation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathological features. However, the association of T2D with pathological and clinical phenotypes in is unclear. Here we investigate the relationship of indices of IR (HOMA-IR) and pancreatic β-cell function (HOMA-B) with cognitive performance across several domains (Verbal/Visual Episodic Memory, Executive Function, Language and a measure of Global cognition) and AD biomarkers (CSF Aβ42, T-tau/P-tau, hippocampal volume and neocortical Aβ-amyloid burden). We reveal that HOMA-IR (p < 0.001) incrementally increases across diagnostic groups, becoming significantly elevated in the AD group compared with cognitively normal (CN) adults. In CN adults, higher HOMA-IR was associated with poorer performance on measures of verbal episodic memory (p = 0.010), executive function (p = 0.046) and global cognition (p = 0.007), as well as with higher CSF T-tau (p = 0.008) and P-tau (p = 0.014) levels. No association was observed with CSF Aβ or imaging modalities. Together our data suggest that IR may contribute to reduced cognitive performance and the accumulation of CSF tau biomarkers in cognitively normal adults.
Citation
Scientific Reports 2017; 7(1): 9766
Jornal Title
Scientific Reports
OrcId
0000-0002-4355-7082
0000-0003-3910-2453
Link
Title
Insulin resistance is associated with reductions in specific cognitive domains and increases in CSF tau in cognitively normal adults.
Type of document
Journal Article

Files:

NameSizeformatDescriptionLink