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Functional and Anatomic Consequences of Diabetic Pregnancy on Memory in Ten-Year-Old Children
Adeline Jabès1, Kathleen M Thomas, Sara Langworthy
1*Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; †Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
Insights
Children born to mothers with diabetes mellitus show no memory deficits by age 10. However, hippocampal formation size in these children predicts response times, suggesting subtle neural differences persist.
Area of Science:
- Developmental neuroscience
- Cognitive development
- Maternal health
Background:
- Diabetes mellitus in pregnancy is linked to impaired offspring memory in early life.
- Long-term cognitive and neural consequences in children exposed to maternal diabetes are not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess long-term memory function and hippocampal formation (HF) volume in 10-year-old children of diabetic mothers (CDMs).
- To investigate the relationship between HF volume and memory performance in CDMs.
Main Methods:
- A 10-year follow-up study comparing 19 CDMs with 35 controls.
- Continuous recognition memory task assessing old/new judgments for objects.
- High-resolution structural MRI to measure hippocampal formation volume.
Main Results:
- No significant differences in recognition memory performance between CDMs and controls at age 10.
- No significant differences in hippocampal formation volume between the groups.
- Hippocampal formation size in CDMs correlated with response time in the memory task.
Conclusions:
- Children of diabetic mothers do not exhibit overt memory impairments by age 10.
- Subtle neural differences, indicated by HF size predicting response time, may persist.
- These findings are crucial for understanding the long-term cognitive development of children exposed to maternal diabetes.
Objective:
Pregnancies complicated by diabetes mellitus impair offspring memory functions during infancy and early childhood. The purpose of this study was to investigate the long-term consequences of such pregnancies on memory and memory-related brain regions in 10-year-old children.
Methods:
Nineteen children of diabetic mothers (CDMs) and 35 children of nondiabetic mothers participated in this 10-year follow-up study. Memory performance was assessed using a continuous recognition memory task during which children made old/new judgments in response to pictures of concrete and abstract objects presented after different lags or delays. In addition, the volume of the hippocampal formation (HF) was measured using high-resolution structural images.
Results:
At 10 years of age, recognition memory performance of CDMs did not differ from children of nondiabetic mothers. Similarly, the volume of the HF did not differ between groups. However, the size of the HF in CDMs predicted the time those children needed to provide accurate responses in the continuous recognition memory task.
Conclusions:
CDMs do not show memory impairments by 10 years of age, despite evidence for such impairments early in life. However, subtle differences in underlying neural processes may still be present. These results have important implications for long-term cognitive development of CDMs.
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