Evaluation of cognitive performance in professional divers by means of event-related potentials and neuropsychology

Abstract

Objective: We investigated whether professional air diving with no decompression illness causes any long-term changes in cognitive functions.

Methods: The all-male participants consisted of 18 healthy control (HC) volunteers and 32 divers. Divers were divided into two subgroups as moderate exposure group, Divers-I (DI) and extensive exposure group, Divers-II (DII). Participants were administered a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while they performed auditory oddball task and visual continuous performance test (CPT).

Results: P3 waves in oddball and CPT were significantly attenuated and peak latencies were prolonged in both diver groups compared with HC. Amplitude decrements in CPT P3 were graded with respect to level of diving exposure. Neuropsychologically, DII group displayed significantly poorer performance than HC and DI groups in measures of visuo-constructional and visual long-term memory tests. DI group performed better than HC group in some measures of planning ability.

Conclusions: Most of the changes in neurophysiological measures and poorer neuropsychological performance were found in DII group, and this might be interpreted as a red flag for the reflection of the slowly progressing deleterious effects of silent bubbles in brain function.

Significance: This study reports impairments in certain neuropsychological measures and apparent neurophysiological markers pointing to slow cognitive decline referring to long-term effects of diving.

Keywords: Cognitive performance; Diving; Event-related potentials; Neuropsychological tests; P3; Silent bubbles.