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Acute hypoglycemia causes decline in language processing
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Acute hypoglycemia appears to yield significant declines in the accuracy of subject-verb agreement and in working memory as measured by reading span, according to recent findings.
“Previous studies have demonstrated the effects of hypoglycemia on specific cognitive domains, including memory, attention, nonverbal intelligence, visual and auditory information processing, psychomotor function, spatial awareness and executive function,” the researchers wrote. “However, the effects of hypoglycemia on language processing have seldom been explored.”
In the study, Ian J. Deary FBA, FRSE, FMedSci, of the University of Edinburgh, and colleagues evaluated 40 adults, 20 with type 1 diabetes, to determine the effects of hypoglycemia on language processing. The participants with diabetes were recruited from the diabetes clinic at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, Scotland, whereas the 20 control participants were recruited through local advertising. Participants ranged in age from 19 years to 44 years, and 48% were men.
Each participant was seen twice for cognitive testing separated by at least 2 weeks. On one of these two occasions, cognitive testing was conducted during controlled glycemia, and on the other, during normal glycemia. During the controlled glycemia examination, a hyperinsulinemic glucose clamp was used to lower blood glucose to 2.5 mmol/L (45 mg/dL; hypoglycemia) for 60 minutes. For the normal glycemia evaluation, blood glucose was maintained at 4.5 mmol/L (81 mg/dL). Language processing tests were administered at both evaluations to determine the effects of hypoglycemia on the association between working memory and language (reading span), grammatical decoding (self-paced reading) and grammatical encoding (subject-verb agreement).
The researchers found that hypoglycemia was associated with a significant decrement in reading span (P < .001) and a decrease in correct response (P = .005). In the evaluation of self-paced reading, the researchers found that more reading time was required for the first sentence fragment during hypoglycemia (P = .12). Hypoglycemia did not appear to yield a significant difference in the number of errors in sentence comprehension or time needed to answer questions. Hypoglycemia did, however, cause a decline in subject-verb agreement (P = .011).
“To our knowledge, this is the first study to use specific tests to target detailed aspects of language processing during acute hypoglycemia,” the researchers wrote. “Hypoglycemia had a significantly deleterious effect on reading span and on subject-verb agreements and possibly on the time to read sentence fragments.” – by Jennifer Byrne
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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