Effect of Obesity on Cognitive Function among School Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives: Childhood obesity contributes to the risk of numerous health problems and has become a major global health concern. This study aimed to establish the association between obesity and cognitive function among healthy school adolescents. Methods: This study was carried out by taking school adolescents (n = 400) from June 2016 to December 2017. The mean age of the participants was 13.93 ± 0.81 years. The students were divided into group A (obese, n = 223) and B (non-obese, n = 177). Cognitive functions were recorded as per study tool of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). Results: Severely obese students showed a significant delay in cognitive functions as compared to students with normal BMI. Attention Switching Task (AST)-Latency among students with normal BMI was 647.88 ± 137.59 compared to the students with high BMI (685.08 ± 115.92, p = 0.05), AST-Incongruent was 680.78 ± 142.07 versus 726.76 ± 122.31 (p = 0.02), AST-Percent correct trials was 84.31 ± 10.45 versus 78.09 ± 14.87 (p = 0.001), and Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift (IED) Total errors among students with normal BMI was 33.93 ± 21.53 compared to the students with high BMI (42.86 ± 37.27, p = 0.03). Conclusion: Cognitive functions including AST-Latency, AST-Incongruent, AST-Percent correct trials, and IED Total errors were significantly weakened in markedly obese students. Significant impairments in their cognitive functions, especially attention, retention, intelligence, and cognitive flexibility, were observed. The findings of this study emphasize the need to involve school adolescents in physical activities to reduce body weight in order to have cognitive functions within normal range and also to minimize obesity-associated complications

Novel interstitial 2q12.3q13 microdeletion predisposes to developmental delay and behavioral problems

International audienceMicroarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) is being increasingly applied to delineate novel genomic disorders and related syndromes in patients with developmental delay. In this study, detailed clinical and cytogenetic data of three unrelated patients with interstitial 2q12.3q13 microdeletion were described and compared with thirteen 2q12.3q13 microdeletion patients, gathered from the medical literature and public databases. 60 K aCGH analysis revealed three overlapping 2q12.3q13 microdeletions measuring 1.88 Mb in patient 1, 1.25 Mb in patient 2, and 0.41 Mb in patient 3, respectively. Confirmation and segregation studies were performed using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and quantitative real-time PCR. Variable clinical features of 2q12.3q13 microdeletion including microcephaly, prenatal growth retardation, developmental delay, short stature, behavioral problems, learning difficulties, skeletal anomalies, congenital heart defects, and features of ectodermal dysplasia were observed. The boundaries and sizes of the 2q12.3q13 deletions in the sixteen patients were different, but an overlapping region of 249 kb in 2q12.3 was defined. The SRO (smallest region of overlap) encompasses four genes, including LIMS1, RANBP2, CCDC138, and EDAR. Among these genes, RANBP2 is a strong candidate gene for neurological phenotype and genetic susceptibility to viral infections. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of 2q12.3q13 microdeletion syndrome and our observations strongly suggest that these recurrent CNVs may be a novel risk factor for developmental delay with variable expressivity and incomplete penetrance