Lesnovskaya Alina, Ripperger Hayley S, Donofry Shannon D, Drake Jermon A, Wan Lu, Poniatowski Alexa, Donahue Patrick T, Crisafio Mary E, Gilmore Alysha D, Richards Emily A, Grove George, Gentry Amanda L, Sereika Susan M, Bender Catherine M, Erickson Kirk I
Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
Front Cognit. 2023;2. doi: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1211525. Epub 2023 Aug 3.
Breast cancer and its treatment are associated with aberrant patterns of resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the hippocampus and several areas of the brain, which may account for poorer cognitive outcomes in patients. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) has been associated with enhanced rsFC and cognitive performance; however, these associations have not been well studied in breast cancer. We examined the relationship between CRF, rsFC of the hippocampus, and cognitive performance among women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.
Thirty-four postmenopausal women newly diagnosed with Stage 0-IIIa breast cancer ( = 63.59 ± 5.73) were enrolled in a 6-month randomized controlled trial of aerobic exercise vs. usual care. During baseline assessments, participants completed functional brain imaging, a submaximal CRF test, and cognitive testing. Whole-brain, seed-based analyses were used to examine the relationship between CRF and hippocampal rsFC, with age, years of education, and framewise displacement included as covariates. Cognition was measured with a battery of validated neurocognitive measures, reduced to seven composite factors.
Higher CRF was positively associated with greater rsFC of the hippocampus to a cluster within the dorsomedial and dorsolateral frontal cortex (-max = 4.37, = 0.003, cluster extent = 1,020 voxels). Connectivity within cluster peaks was not significantly related to cognitive factors (all s > 0.05).
CRF was positively associated with hippocampal rsFC to frontal cortex structures, comprising a network of regions commonly suppressed in breast cancer. Future longitudinal research is needed to explore whether baseline rsFC predicts long-term cognitive resilience in breast cancer.
乳腺癌及其治疗与海马体和大脑多个区域之间静息态功能连接（rsFC）的异常模式有关，这可能是患者认知结果较差的原因。较高的心肺适能（CRF）与增强的rsFC和认知表现相关；然而，这些关联在乳腺癌中尚未得到充分研究。我们研究了新诊断为乳腺癌的女性中CRF、海马体rsFC和认知表现之间的关系。
34名新诊断为0-IIIa期乳腺癌的绝经后女性（平均年龄=63.59±5.73岁）参加了一项为期6个月的有氧运动与常规护理的随机对照试验。在基线评估期间，参与者完成了功能性脑成像、次极量CRF测试和认知测试。采用基于种子点的全脑分析来检查CRF与海马体rsFC之间的关系，将年龄、受教育年限和帧位移作为协变量纳入。用一系列经过验证的神经认知测量方法来测量认知，将其简化为七个综合因素。
较高的CRF与海马体与背内侧和背外侧额叶皮质内一个簇的rsFC增加呈正相关（t最大值=4.37，P=0.003，簇范围=1020个体素）。簇峰值内的连接性与认知因素无显著相关性（所有P>0.05）。
CRF与海马体至额叶皮质结构的rsFC呈正相关，这些结构构成了乳腺癌中通常受抑制的一个区域网络。未来需要进行纵向研究，以探索基线rsFC是否能预测乳腺癌患者的长期认知恢复能力。
