Abstract
ObjectiveThe purpose of the current study was to investigate chemotherapy-related variations in the intrinsic static and dynamic functional connectivity (sFC and dFC, respectively) of the executive control network (ECN) in lung cancer patients.Materials and methodsIn this study, we evaluated 18 lung cancer patients scanned before and after adjuvant chemotherapy treatment and compared the patients with 21 healthy controls (HCs). All subjects underwent resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI). We constructed the sFC and dFC of the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) using a sliding-window approach, and the correlations between the changed sFC or dFC and cognitive performance were analyzed.ResultsWhole-brain sFC analysis showed that the lung cancer patients showed significant FC pattern changes in the bilateral DLPFC, mainly in the bilateral superior frontal gyrus (SFG), bilateral middle frontal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobe and the right insula. Furthermore, after chemotherapy, the lung cancer patients showed significantly reduced dFC variability between the right DLPFC and right precuneus compared with HCs. In addition, the decreased dFC between the right DLPFC and left SFG in the lung cancer patients after chemotherapy in state 1 and between the right DLPFC and left insula in the lung cancer patients before chemotherapy in state 2 were negatively correlated with MoCA scores ((r = -0.520, p = 0.039; r = -0.548, p = 0.028, respectively).ConclusionsOur results reveal that dynamic connectivity analysis is more effective and sensitive than methods that assume static brain states for linking brain FC patterns and chemotherapy.
Highlights
Accompanying the increasing morbidity (ranking first among globally diagnosed cancers (Bray et al 2018)) and overall survival rate of lung cancer, chemotherapy-related cognitiveLanyue Hu and Huiyou Chen contributed to this work.impairment (CRCI) in lung cancer has become a wellrecognized side effect during and after adjuvant chemotherapy treatment (Janelsins et al 2018)
Resting-state functional MRI has been proved as a powerful noninvasive method for examining the brain functional network. resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) evaluates the temporal correlation of intrinsic low-frequency fluctuations based on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals between brain regions during rest(Rosazza and Minati 2011). Using this technique, functional connectivity studies have reported a number of resting-state networks (RSNs) that consist of anatomically separated, but functionally connected regions displaying a high level of correlated BOLD signal activity(van den Heuvel et al 2008; Van Dijk et al 2010), and the corroborated executive control network (ECN) mainly involves the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) (Bressler and Menon 2010; Shirer et al 2012; Weiland et al 2014)
There was no significant difference in age, sex, education level, or Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) score between the lung cancer patients and the healthy controls (HCs)
Summary
Accompanying the increasing morbidity (ranking first among globally diagnosed cancers (Bray et al 2018)) and overall survival rate of lung cancer, chemotherapy-related cognitive. Rs-fMRI evaluates the temporal correlation of intrinsic low-frequency fluctuations based on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals between brain regions during rest(Rosazza and Minati 2011) Using this technique, functional connectivity studies have reported a number of resting-state networks (RSNs) that consist of anatomically separated, but functionally connected regions displaying a high level of correlated BOLD signal activity(van den Heuvel et al 2008; Van Dijk et al 2010), and the corroborated executive control network (ECN) mainly involves the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) (Bressler and Menon 2010; Shirer et al 2012; Weiland et al 2014). As far as we know, this is the first longitudinal study to explore links between sFC and dFC changes in ECN patterns and chemotherapy in the lung cancer patient population
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