Sleep Apnea and IQ

[thefivefingeredhand]

I'm just curious about this, is it possible for sleep apnea that has gone untreated for many years to cause a sharp drop in IQ? I'm wondering because I recently took an IQ test and the score was significantly lower than it was 10 years ago. I took another one and only went up just a few points. It's still much lower than it was a decade ago. And tbh, I feel dumber. I feel as though I just cannot think as easily as I used to. I have severe sleep apnea, I have no idea for how long, but probably many years.

[crossfit]

I would think so. There is a number of studies showing how the brain suffers from lack of oxygen during our apneas and shows long term damage.

[thefivefingeredhand]

Man that's messed up. My IQ is 20 points lower than it used to be. I feel like everything feels harder now, like I can't think or hold anything in my head like I used to be able to. Even with treated apnea, I'll never get it back?

[Captain_Midnight]

TFFH

The scientific research is not impressive about the effects of CPAP in restoring cognitive ability. Don't let this worry you, however, because I believe that eventually a well designed study will show that xPAP therapy improves cognition, especially if the therapy is optimized, 100 compliant, and long-term.

In my case, my mental ability improved within weeks, and I still see continuous little improvements. I find myself thinking more deeply, able to multi-task, remember better than I have in decades. My creative abilities are likewise re-boosted.

Many posters hereabouts have similar pappian cognitive success stories.

Good luck.




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[crossfit]

Five fingers - are you getting treatment yet? There will be a big improvement in lack of sleep fog and difficulty thinking with treatment. It can come fast or slow but from my understanding, that part of the brain issues does heal. I have only been on cpap 2 weeks but notice my head is clearer and I can think better. I don't forget names as much either.

IQ is only one measurement of brain function. There are many stories of people's brains compensating for injured areas once they are given a chance to heal (though I don't know for sure about this in terms of apnea, only other types of brain injury). Whether your IQ, as measured by a given test, comes back or not, you should have increased brain function with treatment simply because your brain will no longer have that fog that comes from lack of oxygen all night.

[Guest]

I like to think that if I lost brain cells they were the mean stupid ones, and I am or will be a better person for it

[Goofproof]

I like to think that if I lost brain cells they were the mean stupid ones, and I am or will be a better person for it

Or with successful XPAP treatment, you may have less living brain cells but the ones that surive get larger and can hold more info. Jim

[crossfit]

well, with all the research on alzheimers and how learning new things throughout our lives can help minimize or prevent it, I think that is much more important than the pure number of brain cells. In fact, there is a thread here about brain research. It seems that SA causes more problems in the white matter. In my sleep deprived understanding, that is more about the connections to various parts of the brain.

[DreamStalker]

Recreational drug use fried my white matter 25 years ago before OSA ever had a chance to do any damage

[RonS]

If I'm not mistaken (and I might very well be mistaken) I seem to recall that IQ declines with age due to the nature of the test itself; age is a component in the score. Like I said, I could be mistaken.

If you can, make an appointment with your primary care physician or directly with a nurologist to discuss your concerns.

There are all sorts of problems that can be helped. Unfortunately they can't quite seem to pinpoint my wife's issues. Of course I don't go into the office with her, so that could be why they aren't seeing the problem.

[mindy]

To begin with, I know very little about brain function (mine's not working much!). I've read a few things and there was a fascinating show on brain function on PBS recently. They showed all kinds of pictures of MRI scans of brains that looked like Swiss cheese caused by all kinds of different things. The message I took away from it was that there may be many causes of brain decrease in function. Years ago I read that we don't develop new brain cells as old ones die off (unlike some other parts of our bodies). If true or not, I'm not sure.

One of my medications is known to wreck havoc with the brain and I truly wouldn't be surprised if OSA does, too. I'm not sure if there's any way to know if it was only OSA or also other things: alcohol, recreational drugs, some prescription drugs, etc. I know my brain doesn't function as well as it used to. xPAP has helped some, but I'm sure nowhere near back to where I used to be. It definitely takes me longer to learn new things.

I'm sure we have forum members who are knowledgable in this area and it would be interesting to hear from them.

Mindy

[roster]

Untreated sleep apnea causes the mammillary bodies (parts of the brain base) to shrink by up to 20% (viewtopic.php?t=31925&start=0). Other studies show people with sleep apnea have many lesions in the brain's white matter.

So, yes, definitely, apnea causes the IQ to decline and memory to decline. Many starting cpap will see an improvement in mental and emotional functioning due to ridding themselves of constant sleep deprivation and excess hormone production while asleep. Returning oxygen levels to normal helps also.

However, if you have shrunken mammillary bodies and lesions in the brain's white matter, this physical damage will not be repaired. You will never be your former self..

[packitin]

Thanks to all for contributing to this. I'm still learning about all this brain mechanism - its all new to me (I didn't take biology). I'm also a little worried that I have central apnea. Some medical sites say that encephalytis may trigger SA because the brainstem is effected. That worries me because when I was about 38 or 39, that disease almost took me out of here. That was horrible - I could feel different parts of my brain aching as it (the infection) moved around my brain and I was going in and out of conscienceness, due to a severe (to put it mildly) headache. My question: what is the function of the brain stem, and how could this disease have possibly given me this condition? Also, how do they test to see if one has central apea, as opposed to OSA? Thanks for any enlightenment.
Jay

[mellabella]

Man that's messed up. My IQ is 20 points lower than it used to be. I feel like everything feels harder now, like I can't think or hold anything in my head like I used to be able to. Even with treated apnea, I'll never get it back?

I think it's best to place the focus on what we can do now to improve functioning, instead of on any irreversible damage done before CPAP therapy began.

For instance, rigorous aerobic exercise has been shown to improve cognition:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007 ... egrow.html

Puzzles and other fresh challenges (even just as simple as driving a different route to the same place, using the non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, etc.) have also been shown to bolster brain power as well.

[Catnapper]

I am no expert on IQ assessments, so I may not explain well what little I think I know, so someone else should feel free to clarify or correct me.

The norms for IQ tests are made from the results of lots of people who took the tests. The score you get is compared to others your age and how they scored. From that one might assume that if IQ changes as a person ages, the norms would show that by how far above or below the average score for someone that age achieves. The norm would be lower, but your IQ might be the same even if you were not still achieving at the level you did earlier.

As a person ages, the way a person accesses and processes information changes. Working memory and general knowledge change too. I think it is possible to have higher IQ at a later age than when younger because of those changes.

Do we have psychologists among our membership? There is likely a better way to explain what I am trying to say.

I was just hoping to make myself feel better that I think differently than I did when I was a young person who had not slaughtered my brain cells or their pathways.