About half of adults with type 1 diabetes face significant cognitive impairment, including problems with working memory and executive function that affect day-to-day thinking. But less is known about how the condition affects children during a window of time known to be critical for healthy brain development. A new large-scale longitudinal study, led by the Keck School of Medicine of USC, will unite 12 research centers across the United States to explore that important question.
Researchers will collaborate to recruit a large, diverse group of children newly diagnosed with diabetes, taking a sweeping look at the environmental, lifestyle, social, and clinical factors that affect the way the brain develops. The five-year study is supported by a grant of more than $2.7 million from the National Institutes of Health.
What we really want to know is: In children newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, what are factors that may either accelerate or mitigate the risk of developing brain-related complications?" Kathleen Alanna Page, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine and one of the project's principal investigators With a target sample size of more than 1,000 children, the study is one of the first large-scale efforts to look at the neurocognitive effects of type 1 diabetes in this age group. The study is also unusual in its commitment to recruiting a racially, ethnically and income-diverse group of participants. Most past research on type 1 diabetes has .