Leveraging Cognitive Science to Identify Behavioral Markers of Chemobrain
Mentor 1
Dr. Adam Greenberg
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
28-4-2017 1:30 PM
End Date
28-4-2017 4:00 PM
Description
Although chemotherapy is currently our best weapon in fighting a large range of cancers, the treatment is notorious for its long list of physical side effects. As more breast cancer patients reach survivorship, nearly a quarter of those treated with chemotherapy report symptoms of ongoing mental decline known as chemobrain. However, the specific effects of chemobrain on the attention system are not widely understood. Furthermore, biomarkers of chemobrain have not yet been identified due to the nonspecific neuropsychological tests typically employed when testing chemobrain patients. Our aim in this study is to (a) examine the specific attention deficits caused by chemobrain (by quantifying attention processes of alerting, orienting, and distractor filtering), (b) measure the extent to which these metrics are predictive of chemobrain, and (c) compare the effects of chemobrain on visual and auditory attention processes. During the first two years of the study we will use a set of neuropsychological assessments along with two versions of the Attention Network Test to objectively measure the visual and auditory attention of 60 adult female breast cancer patients. We will administer the tests at two time points: (a) before the start and (b) following the end of our participants' chemotherapy treatment. We anticipate that pre-chemotherapy behavioral measures of visual attention may be predictive of post-chemotherapy chemobrain symptoms, particularly the reduced ability of alerting and distracter filtering. We also predict that auditory deficits will coincide with visual deficits, such that orienting will not be affected. Possible future directions may involve an MRI brain imaging study to examine the functional brain mechanisms correlated with symptoms/severity of chemobrain. Findings of reliable behavioral and neurological markers of chemobrain may be instrumental in the creation of preventative cognitive therapies in the form of "brain games" and other take-home exercises.
Leveraging Cognitive Science to Identify Behavioral Markers of Chemobrain
Union Wisconsin Room
Although chemotherapy is currently our best weapon in fighting a large range of cancers, the treatment is notorious for its long list of physical side effects. As more breast cancer patients reach survivorship, nearly a quarter of those treated with chemotherapy report symptoms of ongoing mental decline known as chemobrain. However, the specific effects of chemobrain on the attention system are not widely understood. Furthermore, biomarkers of chemobrain have not yet been identified due to the nonspecific neuropsychological tests typically employed when testing chemobrain patients. Our aim in this study is to (a) examine the specific attention deficits caused by chemobrain (by quantifying attention processes of alerting, orienting, and distractor filtering), (b) measure the extent to which these metrics are predictive of chemobrain, and (c) compare the effects of chemobrain on visual and auditory attention processes. During the first two years of the study we will use a set of neuropsychological assessments along with two versions of the Attention Network Test to objectively measure the visual and auditory attention of 60 adult female breast cancer patients. We will administer the tests at two time points: (a) before the start and (b) following the end of our participants' chemotherapy treatment. We anticipate that pre-chemotherapy behavioral measures of visual attention may be predictive of post-chemotherapy chemobrain symptoms, particularly the reduced ability of alerting and distracter filtering. We also predict that auditory deficits will coincide with visual deficits, such that orienting will not be affected. Possible future directions may involve an MRI brain imaging study to examine the functional brain mechanisms correlated with symptoms/severity of chemobrain. Findings of reliable behavioral and neurological markers of chemobrain may be instrumental in the creation of preventative cognitive therapies in the form of "brain games" and other take-home exercises.
