5803Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA.
14770City University of New York, New York, USA.
Clin EEG Neurosci. 2023 Mar;54(2):189-197. doi: 10.1177/15500594221074860. Epub 2022 Feb 4.
Cognitive impairment has been observed consistently in a subset of breast cancer survivors. Yet, still unknown is whether neural and behavioral effects of cancer exist to treatment, which may contribute to later cognitive decline. The current study investigated pre-treatment differences in attention performance and frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA), an established neural index of inhibitory control, in non-metastatic breast cancer patients ( = 42) compared with healthy controls ( = 28). We additionally investigated whether differences between groups appear in specific cuing conditions and across different stages of information processing. Participants underwent EEG while completing the Attention Network Task (ANT), a cognitive measure of alerting, orienting, and inhibitory control of attention. Results revealed no behavioral differences between patients and controls but significantly greater right-hemisphere alpha activity (reduced inhibitory control) in patients, particularly to uninformative (no cue, double cue) versus informative (valid cue) cues and in later stages of information processing (400-800 ms post-stimulus). Results suggest neural differences between groups to uncertain stimulus environments that have yet to manifest behaviorally. FAA may thus serve as a unique neural correlate that could potentially be used to predict later cognitive decline.
认知障碍在一部分乳腺癌幸存者中一直存在。然而，仍不清楚癌症对治疗的神经和行为影响是否存在，这可能导致以后的认知能力下降。本研究调查了非转移性乳腺癌患者（n=42）与健康对照组（n=28）在注意力表现和前额 alpha 不对称（FAA）方面的治疗前差异，FAA 是一种已确立的抑制控制神经指标。我们还调查了组间差异是否出现在特定的提示条件下，以及在信息处理的不同阶段。参与者在完成注意网络任务（ANT）时接受了 EEG，这是一种对警觉、定向和注意力抑制控制的认知测量。结果显示，患者和对照组之间没有行为差异，但患者的右半球 alpha 活动（抑制控制降低）明显更高，特别是在无提示（无提示、双重提示）与有提示（有效提示）提示以及信息处理的后期阶段（刺激后 400-800ms）。结果表明，两组之间存在对不确定刺激环境的神经差异，这些差异尚未表现在行为上。FAA 因此可以作为一个独特的神经相关指标，可能被用来预测以后的认知能力下降。
