Hippocampal functional connectivity is related to self-reported cognitive concerns in breast cancer patients undergoing adjuvant therapy

Publication date: Available online 12 July 2018Source: NeuroImage: ClinicalAuthor(s): Alexandra C. Apple, Matthew P. Schroeder, Anthony J. Ryals, Lynne I. Wagner, David Cella, Pei-An Shih, James Reilly, FFrank J. Penedo, Joel L. Voss, Lei WangAbstractNearly three out of four survivors experience Cancer-Related Cognitive Impairment (CRCI) for months or years following treatment. Both clinical and animal studies point to the hippocampus as a likely brain region affected in CRCI, however no previous study has investigated the functional connectivity of the hippocampus in CRCI. We compared hippocampal connectivity in cancer survivors and healthy controls and tested the relationship between functional connectivity differences and measures of objective and subjective cognition. Exploratory analysis of inflammatory markers was conducted in a small subset of participants as well. FMRI data were acquired during a memory task from 16 breast cancer survivors and 17 controls. The NIH Toolbox was used to assess cognitive performance and Neuro-QoL was used to measure self-reported cognitive concerns. Whole-brain group-level comparisons identified clusters with different connectivity to the hippocampus in survivors versus controls during task. Average connectivity was extracted from clusters of significant difference between the groups and correlated with cognitive performance and subjective report. Survivors performed worse on a test of episodic memory and reported greater cognitive concer...
Source: NeuroImage: Clinical - Category: Radiology Source Type: research