Eleven clinical centers in the United States have been selected to participate in a national study with the potential to improve brain health and psychosocial function in children with Type 1 diabetes (T1D).
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center study arm, which received a $1.8 million, five-year National Institutes of Health award, will be led by a team from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt featuring Sarah Jaser, PhD, professor of Pediatrics, and Lori Jordan, MD, PhD, professor of Pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Stroke Program.
The multidisciplinary team includes a pediatric psychologist, a pediatric neurologist, a pediatric endocrinologist, a pediatric neuroradiologist, and experts in imaging science, Biomedical Engineering Professor Adam Anderson and Bennett Landman, director of the Vanderbilt Lab for Immersive AI Translation (VALIANT) and professor of electrical and computer engineering, to develop neuroimaging harmonization plans. Others include the Biostatistics Research Core at the University of Minnesota; project scientists at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; and other centers to finalize the study protocol.
The mechanisms underlying neural injury are unclear and neurocognitive outcomes have not been evaluated prospectively using a diverse sample of children.
At Vanderbilt, the goal is to enroll 80 children ages 6-11 with new-onset T1D and 20 children without T1D. The cohort will be followed for a minimum of two years. The multidisciplinary team hopes to begin enrolling patients in 2025 for the study, “Neurocognitive Complications of Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes: Identifying Modifiable Risk and Protective Factors.”
Project leads said that the Pediatric Diabetes Program (PDP) at Monroe Carell is an ideal place to address the study aims because of the local, multidisciplinary expertise in behavioral research, including sleep and caregiver distress, neurocognitive testing, advanced research neuroimaging and strong community engagement in children with T1D.
“The PDP follows a diverse group of nearly 3,000 children with diabetes; 85% of these patients have Type 1 diabetes,” said Jordan. “Each year, the program sees about 275 new-onset Type 1 diabetes cases. With a long history of clinical Type 1 diabetes research, we are well positioned to contribute to the multicenter, longitudinal cohort study.”