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Functional connectivity change of brain default mode network in breast cancer patients after chemotherapy

  • Functional Neuroradiology
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Abstract

Introduction

Complaint about attention disorders is common among breast cancer patients who have undergone chemotherapy, which may be associated with the default mode network (DMN). To validate this hypothesis, we investigated the DMN functional connectivity (FC) change and its relationship with the attention function in breast cancer patients (BC) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI).

Methods

Twenty-two BC treated with chemotherapy and 22 healthy controls (HC) were recruited into this study. The FC between the DMN’s hubs and regions of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) and medial temporal lobe (MTL) subsystems was respectively calculated for each participant.

Results

The statistical result showed significantly lower connectivity in dMPFC and MTL subsystems in the BC group. In addition, the partial correlation analysis result indicated that the low connectivity of some brain regions in MTL subsystem was correlated with attention dysfunction following BC chemotherapy.

Conclusion

These results suggest that the functional disconnection in MTL subsystem of the DMN may have association with attention function of BC after chemotherapy.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers: 81371537, 91432301), Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program) (Grant number: 2013CB733803) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (WK2070000033).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Center for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China

      Hui Miao, Xiaoxuan He, Sheng Hu, Meiqi Wu, Yarui Wei, Yawen Zhou, Lu Wang & Bensheng Qiu

    2. Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230022, China

      Xingui Chen & Kai Wang

    3. Department of Breast Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China

      Yunwen Yan

    4. Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA

      Jian Kong

    5. Anhui Computer Application Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hefei, Anhui, 230038, China

      Bensheng Qiu

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    1. Hui Miao
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    Correspondence to Kai Wang or Bensheng Qiu.

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    We declare that all human and animal studies have been approved by the research ethics committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. We declare that all patients gave informed consent prior to inclusion in this study.

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    We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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    HM and XC contributed equally to this work.

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    Miao, H., Chen, X., Yan, Y. et al. Functional connectivity change of brain default mode network in breast cancer patients after chemotherapy. Neuroradiology 58, 921–928 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-016-1708-8

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