Identifying the Brain Substrates of Hypoglycemia Unawareness in Type 1 Diabetes

Hypoglycemia, also called low blood glucose or low blood sugar, occurs when blood glucose drops below normal levels. When blood glucose starts to drop, the body reacts to this drop, trying to restore the blood glucose level. Symptoms of hypoglycemia are usually easily recognized. Hypoglycemia can be treated quickly and easily by eating or drinking a small amount of glucose-rich food. However some people with long history of diabetes can have an impaired response to hypoglycemia and therefore don't recognize the symptoms of hypoglycemia, condition called hypoglycemia unawareness. If not treated hypoglycemia can get worse and cause confusion, clumsiness, fainting etc. Currently, it is not fully understood which brain areas are involved in sensing the drop of glucose levels. Absence of such knowledge is a critical barrier to the design and monitoring of effective intervention strategies to avoid and/or reverse hypoglycemia unawareness. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the brain responds to low blood glucose in non-diabetic individuals. Specific focus is given to differences between two groups of non-diabetic subjects: one group who experienced two episodes of hypoglycemia the day prior to the study (and therefore supposedly developed some level of unawareness to hypoglycemia), and one group who did not.