Silvia Mangia1, Federico De Martino1, 2, Anjali Kumar3, Amir Moheet3, Pete Kollasch1, Lynn Eberly4, Elizabeth Seaquist3
1CMRR - Dept. of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; 2Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, Netherlands; 3Dept. of Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States; 4Div. of Biostatistics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States
We measured the brain default mode network (DMN) in six subjects with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) and hypoglycemia unawareness and in seven healthy controls with similar age and body-mass-index, by using resting-state fMRI while blood glucose levels were controlled by hyperinsulinemic clamps. Decreased functional connectivity of some DMN regions was observed in T1DM subjects as compared to controls in euglycemia. Furthermore, whereas the prefrontal cortex had basically no functional connectivity to the other areas of the DMN during hypoglycemia in controls, such response was largely reduced in T1DM unaware patients, likely reflecting differences their perception of the stress of hypoglycemia.