| Popis: |
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a frequent disorder, associated with cognitive and behavioral sequelae, including impairments in executive functions (EF). Previous literature has focused on the cool aspects of EF, and has largely ignored the impact OSA may have on hot EF that involves the regulation of affect and emotion. The present study examined performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), a task believed to assess hot EF, in a population of overweight adolescents at risk for OSA. We found that IGT performance was related to tasks that required working memory and behavioral inhibition, but not associated with other measures of cool EF. Further, whereas individuals with minimal evidence of OSA learned to make more beneficial decisions on the IGT over time, participants with OSA did not benefit from feedback and continued to make choices associated with higher initial rewards, but greater long-term losses. This provides evidence that OSA is associated with impairments in decision-making, particularly aspects of hot EF that have been purported to be mediated by ventromedial prefrontal cortical functioning. Finally, although we hypothesized that developmental level would be related to IGT performance, we found that this relationship was moderated by OSA status. Individuals with OSA did not demonstrate the expected developmental gains in performance on the decision-making task. This finding suggests that OSA may impact the development of critical aspects of EF. |
