Abstract
In this study, we aimed to investigate the intrinsic hippocampal functional connectivity (FC) network and its relationship with prospective memory in patients with breast cancer suffering from chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment (CICI). Thirty-four breast cancer patients before and after adjuvant chemotherapy (CB and CC, respectively) and 31 age- and education-matched cognitively normal (CN) women were recruited and subjected to a prospective memory task and a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Seed-based functional connectivity analysis was used to compare the hippocampal FC networks between CC and CN groups. Partial correction analysis was used to examine the association between the hippocampal FC network and prospective memory in the CC group. The cancer group that underwent chemotherapy obtained significantly poorer scores than the CN group on mini-mental state examination, verbal fluency test, digit span, and prospective memory examination. Compared to the CN group, CC group showed increased hippocampal connectivity in the frontal and parietal cortex, precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, and the cerebellum. In addition, the increasing hippocampal FC networks were negatively correlated with prospective memory performance in the CC group. These findings suggest maladaptive hippocampal functioning as a mechanism underlying the impairment of prospective memory in patients experiencing CICI.
Highlights
Represents the majority of everyday memory lapses reported by healthy adults[9]
Compared to cognitively normal (CN) group, CC group showed a significantly deteriorated cognitive function on Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Digit Span (DS), Verbal Fluency Test (VFT), EBPM, and TBPM (p < 0.01).As shown in Table 2, there was no significant difference in the scores of neuropsychological background tests, EBPM, and TBPM between CB and CN groups (p > 0.05).As Table 3 shows, the average neuropsychological data scores obtained from the patients having undergone chemotherapy were significantly different from those obtained before chemotherapy (p < 0.01)
We investigated if the intrinsic hippocampal functional connectivity was effective in post-chemotherapy breast cancer survivors by using rs-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
Summary
Represents the majority of everyday memory lapses reported by healthy adults[9]. Because PM is such a central aspect of successful daily functioning, understanding the nature, the extent, and the neuropathological mechanisms underlying PM dysfunctionin breast cancer survivors is important. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has recently been adopted as a method to explore the mechanisms of breast cancer chemobrain. Bruno and colleagues found that the shortest path was increased and clustering coefficient reduced in the frontal lobe and temporal lobe areas of patients with breast cancer having undergone chemotherapy[13] This finding promopted an idea that abnormal brain networks in the frontal lobe and temporal lobe brain regions associated with cognitive function may be an important mechanism underlying breast cancer chemobrain. The present study aimed to explore neurobiological mechanisms underlying the prospective memory impairment in 34 breast cancer patients who underwent chemotherapy by using resting-state fMRI to investigate the integrity of hippocampal FC networks. We hypothesized that the intrinsic hippocampal FC network would be impaired in the patient group as compared with the cognitively normal control group, and that the PM performance would be selectively associated with altered hippocampal FC networks in the patient group
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
