Evaluation of Auditory Cortical Function in Type I Diabetic Patients by Auditory Late ‎Latency Response

Diabetes is a common disorder which contributes to a variety of complications such as deficits in central auditory nervous system (CANS). Auditory late latency response (ALLR) is a well-established neurophysiological approach in the assessment of CANS performance. This study was aimed to compare ALLR in insulin dependent (Type I) diabetic patients and normal individuals.

In this descriptive analytical and non-interventional study, ALLR was measured by using tone burst 1000 Hz on 25 Type I diabetic patients and 25 age, education and sex matched healthy controls include 12 males and 13 female in both groups, with mean age 28.76±4.1 year in patients and 29.68±3.6 year in controls. Data were analyzed by t-test and Pearson correlation tests using SPSS 17 software.

The mean ALLRs latency and amplitude of the diabetic patients were significantly different when compared with that of normal controls in both genders (p<0.01). Also, there was a strong correlation between ALLR latency and HbA1c and diabetes duration (p<0.01).

Significant prolongation in latency and significant reduction in amplitude of ALLRs in the diabetic patients shows that cortical auditory information processing is slower than normal individuals.