Department of Psychology, City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Services, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2023 Jan 21;38(1):12-24. doi: 10.1093/arclin/acac051.
Cognitive dysfunction has been observed consistently in a subset of breast cancer survivors. Yet, the precise physiological and processing origins of dysfunction remain unknown. The current study examined the utility of methods and procedures based on cognitive neuroscience to study cognitive change associated with cancer and cancer treatment.
We used electroencephalogram and behavioral measures in a longitudinal design to investigate pre- versus post-treatment effects on attention performance in breast cancer patients (n = 15) compared with healthy controls (n = 24), as participants completed the revised Attention Network Test, a cognitive measure of alerting, orienting, and inhibitory control of attention.
We found no group differences in behavioral performance from pretest to posttest, but significant event-related potential effects of cancer treatment in processing cue validity: After treatment, patients revealed decreased N1 amplitude and increased P3 amplitude, suggesting a suppressed early (N1) response and an exaggerated late (P3) response to invalid cues.
The results suggest that treatment-related attentional disruption begins in early sensory/perceptual processing and extends to compensatory top-down executive processes.
认知功能障碍在乳腺癌幸存者的一部分人群中一直存在。然而，功能障碍的确切生理和处理起源仍然未知。本研究考察了基于认知神经科学的方法和程序在研究与癌症和癌症治疗相关的认知变化中的应用。
我们使用脑电图和行为测量在纵向设计中，研究了乳腺癌患者（n=15）与健康对照组（n=24）在治疗前后对注意力表现的影响，因为参与者完成了修订后的注意力网络测试，这是一种对警觉、定向和注意力抑制控制的认知测量。
我们发现从预测试到后测试，行为表现没有组间差异，但癌症治疗对处理线索有效性的事件相关电位效应显著：治疗后，患者的 N1 振幅降低，P3 振幅增加，表明对无效线索的早期（N1）反应受到抑制，晚期（P3）反应增强。
结果表明，与治疗相关的注意力障碍始于早期的感觉/知觉处理，并扩展到代偿性的自上而下的执行过程。
