Cognitive Dysfunctions in Patients With Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome: Neuropsychological Test and Event-Related Potential Study

J Korean Neurol Assoc > Volume 26(4); 2008 > Article

Journal of the Korean Neurological Association 2008;26(4): 333-340.

심한 폐쇄수면무호흡증후군 환자들의 인지기능장애: 신경심리 검사 및 사건유발전위

이동규, 박희정 김선화 조재욱a 주은연 정기영b 홍승봉

성균관대학교 의과대학 삼성서울병원 신경과, 부산대학교 의과대학 신경과학교실a, 고려대학교 의과대학 안암병원 신경과b

Cognitive Dysfunctions in Patients With Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome: Neuropsychological Test and Event-Related Potential Study

Dong Kyoo Lee

Department of Neurology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, KoreaDepartment of Neurology, College of Medicine, Busan National Universitya, Busan, KoreaDepartment of Neurology, Korea University Medical Center, Korea University School of Medicineb, Seoul, Korea

Abstract

Background: Patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) show variety of dysfunctions in cognitions including general cognitive function, attention, and frontal lobe and executive function. However, there is no consensus on the main features of the cognitive dysfunction in OSAS patients. So we performed neuropsychological tests and event-related potential (ERP) studies in patients with severe OSAS to evaluate the cognitive dysfunctions and changes of auditory and visual P300.
Methods: Twenty-eight men with severe OSAS (apnea hypopnea index (AHI)=63.1±17.8/hr) and 16 age, sex, education- matched normal controls (AHI=2.9±1.8/hr) underwent neuropsychological tests and ERP studies.
Results: Patients with severe OSAS showed deficits in corsi block forward and backward test during neuropsychological evaluation, and delayed latency and decreased amplitude of auditory P300. There were significant correlations between auditory P300 amplitudes and digit span forward or corsi block forward test scores, and between visual P300 amplitudes and digit symbol test scores.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that severe OSAS patients may have deficits in attention and short-term memory, and abnormal auditory P300. KeyWords:Obstructive sleep apnea, Cognition, Attention, Neuropsychological test, Event-related potentials, P300