Study on brain dysfunction of chemotherapy related cognitive impairment in breast cancer patients based on posterior cingulate cortex functional connectivity

LIU Tonghui; LI Peng; ZHANG Huawen; FENG Wei; WANG Xueyuan; CHEN Rui; WEI Hengyang

Abstract：Objective In this study,Posterior cingulate cortex(PCC)functional connectivity analysis was used to explore the brain dysfunction of chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment in breast cancer.Methods 20 cases of invasive ductal car-cinoma of the breast confirmed by surgery and pathology and receiving all chemotherapy cycles were selected,and a series of neurocognitive assessments and magnetic resonance imaging examinations were performed after surgery,before chemotherapy(T0 point),and after chemotherapy(T1 point).We compared the changes of neurocognitive function at T0 and T1 time points and the longitudinal changes based on PCC functional connectivity in breast cancer patients and used correlation analysis to ex-plore the relationship between PCC functional connectivity abnormalities and cognitive function.Results Compared with those before chemotherapy,the scores of immediate recall,short-term delayed recall,long-term delayed recall,and digit reverse task of breast cancer patients,who received all chemotherapy cycles,decreased,and the duration of CTT-1 and CTT-2 increased,with a statistically significant difference(P<0.05).The results of functional connectivity analysis based on PCC as seed point showed that the functional connectivity between PCC and right superior frontal gyrus,right angular gyrus and right anterior cunei-form lobe in breast cancer patients after chemotherapy was reduced(P<0.001,uncorrected).The results of correlation analysis showed that the functional connectivity(FC)difference between PCC and right anterior cuneiform lobe of breast cancer patients after chemotherapy was significantly positively correlated with the difference of immediate recall score and the difference of short-term delayed recall score(P<0.05).Conclusion Chemotherapy can cause abnormal reduction of functional connectivity be-tween PCC and multiple brain regions in breast cancer patients and,also,cause cognitive dysfunction in multiple fields.The functional connectivity between PCC and the right anterior cuneiform lobe is involved in the regulation of memory function.