Objectives. To assess cognitive impairment in people accidentally exposed to radiation. Materials and methods. The study included individuals living in the Techa river basin, who are included in the “People” database of the Urals Research Center for Radiation Medicine, Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia. The study group included 38 people with soft tissue irradiation doses of ≥0.07 Gy and the control group consisted of 38 people selected by the matched pair case-control method who had been exposed to soft tissue doses not exceeding the background level. Clinical methods, assessment of cognitive evoked potentials (EP), clinical psychological methods, and statistical methods were used. Results. The study group showed a tendency towards an increase in the proportion of subjects with mild cognitive impairment (F06.7) and statistically significantly greater proportions of individuals with cognitive impairment syndrome (p = 0.039; OR = 2.9; 95% CI 1.2–7.5), dyssomnia syndrome (p = 0.022; OR = 2.6; 95% CI 1.04–6.6), and complaints of decreased memory for current events (p = 0.034; OR = 2.8; 95% CI 1, 1–7.5). This group showed statistically significant differences as compared with the control group in individual indicators of P300 latency (LP) (p = 0.009); this group also showed a statistically significantly greater proportion of individuals with LP increased by 3 sigma or more (p = 0.025; OR = 6.4, 95% CI 1.3–31.7). Conclusions. Cognitive impairments were more marked in the study group, this being apparent as an increase in the proportion of subjects with mild cognitive impairment (F06.7), cognitive decline syndrome, complaints of deterioration in cognitive functions, and lengthening of P300 LP.
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Translated from Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S. S. Korsakova, Vol. 122, No. 7, pp. 132–137, July, 2022.
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Litvinchuk, E.A., Kantina, T.E. & Burtovaia, E.Y. Assessment of Cognitive Functions in Patients Accidentally Exposed to Radiation. Neurosci Behav Physi 53, 319–323 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-023-01428-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-023-01428-2