The evoluation cognitive deficits in osas patients through event-related potantials

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is characterized by desaturation in blood oxygen level and sleep fragmentation because of repeated upper airway obstruction.Beside many systemic problems, especially cognitive dysfunction with selective and spontaneous attention defects are observed. In this study, we aimed to investigate cognitive dysfunctions in OSAS patients with event related potentials (ERP) and continuous performance test (CPT).Thirty four OSAS patients and 36 healthy controls were analyzed from ERP with an `oddball paradigm?. Recordings were obtained from scalp placed on Fz, Cz and Pz latency and amplitude of N100, N200, P200 and P300 were measured according to records. All subjects were tested with CPT on computer, one of the neuropsychological tests.Due to obtained results, significantly longer P300 latency and lower P300 amplitude in OSAS patients than control subjects were observed. Like the same CPT results showed more wrong results in OSAS patients than control group. In Epworth sleep scale analysis (ESS) P300 latencies were longer in patients having ?10 ESS.ERP and CPT tests were useful to test cognitive functions of OSAS patients. Negative effects of OSAS on cognitive functions were observed in the results of these tests.Key Words: Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, Event related potentials, Continuous performance tests, Cognitive functions.