Shelli R. Kesler

10094 Background: Insomnia is experienced by up to 80% of cancer patients, and it frequently co-occurs with circadian rhythm disruption. The relationship is reciprocal in that disruption in circadian rhythm can cause or result from insomnia and vice versa. There are no effective brief behavioral interventions that can be delivered directly in infusion centers. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a novel intervention, BBT-CI, for improving sleep and circadian rhythm disruption in BC patients undergoing chemotherapy. Methods: In our phase II, two-arm, randomized clinical trial, 71 BC patients (mean age = 52.5) who reported moderate insomnia were randomized to: 1) BBT-CI or 2) a healthy eating behavioral control (HEAL). BBT-CI and HEAL were delivered over 6 weeks (2 face-to-face sessions + 4 phone calls) at 5 NCI-funded NCORP clinics by trained assistants. Sleep disruption was measured with the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) and circadian rhythm with the Actiwatch-64 (Mesor, Amplitude, and Acrophase for 12- and 24-hour cycles). Participants completed the ISI at baseline and post-intervention and wore the Actiwatch for 7 days prior to each visit. Results: The study showed excellent feasibility and acceptability of BBT-CI as reflected by a recruitment rate of over 75% and an intervention adherence of 74%, with 75% of intervention components successfully delivered by trained community staff. ANCOVA results indicate that patients who received BBT-CI exhibited improvements in insomnia compared to HEAL at post-intervention (p = .049) and at 1-month follow-up (p = .002). Furthermore, results reveal a significant treatment effect in circadian rhythm at post-intervention for 24-hour amplitude (p = .009) and 12-hour Acrophase (p = .012) as well as a trend for Mesor in favor of BBT-CI (p = .10). Conclusions: BBT-CI demonstrated greater improvements in insomnia and circadian rhythm than HEAL. In addition, this novel intervention has shown efficacy in community oncology clinics. BBT-CI has the potential of changing clinical practice as it reduces patients’ psychophysiological symptoms and burden due to its behavioral design and capacity to be delivered directly in infusion centers. Clinical trial information: NCT02002533.

10095 Background: Over half of patients receiving taxane, platinum, and vinca alkaloid chemotherapy experience chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), which involves numbness and neuropathic pain in the hands and feet. CIPN has no effective treatments partly because its etiology is poorly understood. We theorize that CIPN symptoms are partly caused by impairment of interoceptive brain circuitry, which processes bodily sensations via the posterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). We investigated whether CIPN is associated with altered connectivity in interoceptive brain circuitry. Methods: Fifty women with breast cancer (50±9 years) reported CIPN symptoms (CIPN-20) and underwent resting fMRI one or more times: before surgery, one month after completion of chemotherapy, and one year after chemotherapy. We used an a priori seed-based investigation of connectivity between the posterior insula and ACC. We compared connectivity between 31 patients without CIPN symptoms (≤10 CIPN-20-Sensory), 19 patients with CIPN symptoms ( > 10 CIPN-20-Sensory), and 280 healthy adults (174 women, 19.3 years) from another study. Results: Patients with CIPN symptoms had significantly reduced connectivity between the posterior insula and the ACC compared to patients without CIPN symptoms (p = 0.01, d = 0.73). Connectivity between the posterior insula and the ACC was negative in patients with CIPN symptoms but positive in both healthy adults and patients without CIPN symptoms. Conclusions: CIPN is characterized by reduced connectivity in interoceptive brain circuitry. Interoceptive networks may be a target for the development of therapies directed to prevent or treat CIPN. Future work will assess causal relationships between CIPN symptoms and reduced connectivity.

Background: Chemotherapy treatment for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) has been associated with long‐term cognitive impairments in some patients. However, the neurobiologic mechanisms underlying these impairments, particularly in young survivors, are not well understood. This study aimed to examine intrinsic functional brain connectivity in pediatric ALL and its relationship with cognitive status.Procedure: We obtained resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) and cognitive testing data from 15 ALL survivors age 8–15 years and 14 matched healthy children. The ALL group had a history of intrathecal chemotherapy treatment but were off‐therapy for at least 6 months at the time of enrollment. We used seed‐based analyses to compare intrinsic functional brain network connectivity between the groups. We also explored correlations between connectivity and cognitive performance, demographic, medical, and treatment variables.Results: We demonstrated significantly reduced connectivity between bilateral hippocampus, left inferior occipital, left lingual gyrus, bilateral calcarine sulcus, and right amygdala in the ALL group compared to controls. The ALL group also showed regions of functional hyperconnectivity including right lingual gyrus, precuneus, bilateral superior occipital lobe, and right inferior occipital lobe. Functional hypoconnectivity was associated with reduced cognitive function as well as younger age at diagnosis in the ALL group.Conclusions: This is the first study to demonstrate that intrinsic functional brain connectivity is disrupted in pediatric ALL following chemotherapy treatment. These results help explain cognitive dysfunction even when objective test performance is seemingly normal. Children diagnosed at a younger age may show increased vulnerability to altered functional brain connectivity. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2014;61:1295–1299.

Advances in breast cancer (BC) treatments have resulted in significantly improved survival rates. However, BC chemotherapy is often associated with several side effects including cognitive dysfunction. We applied multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to find a brain connectivity pattern that accurately and automatically distinguishes chemotherapy-treated (C+) from non-chemotherapy treated (C−) BC females and healthy female controls (HC). Twenty-seven C+, 29 C−, and 30 HC underwent fMRI during an executive-prefrontal task (Go/Nogo). The pattern of functional connectivity associated with this task discriminated with significant accuracy between C+ and HC groups (72%, p = .006) and between C+ and C− groups (71%, p = .012). However, the accuracy of discrimination between C− and HC was not significant (51%, p = .46). Compared with HC, behavioral performance of the C+ and C− groups during the task was intact. However, the C+ group demonstrated altered functional connectivity in the right frontoparietal and left supplementary motor area networks compared to HC, and in the right middle frontal and left superior frontal gyri networks, compared to C−. Our results provide further evidence that executive function performance may be preserved in some chemotherapy-treated BC survivors through recruitment of additional neural connections. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–11)

Breast cancer (BC) chemotherapy is associated with cognitive changes including persistent deficits in some individuals. We tested the accuracy of default mode network (DMN) resting state functional connectivity patterns in discriminating chemotherapy treated (C+) from non–chemotherapy (C−) treated BC survivors and healthy controls (HC). We also examined the relationship between DMN connectivity patterns and cognitive function. Multivariate pattern analysis was used to classify 30 C+, 27 C−, and 24 HC, which showed significant accuracy for discriminating C+ from C− (91.23%, P < 0.0001) and C+ from HC (90.74%, P < 0.0001). The C− group did not differ significantly from HC (47.06%, P = 0.60). Lower subjective memory function was correlated ( P < 0.002) with greater hyperplane distance (distance from the linear decision function that optimally separates the groups). Disrupted DMN connectivity may help explain long-term cognitive difficulties following BC chemotherapy.

Breast cancer survivors are at increased risk for cognitive dysfunction, which reduces quality of life. Neuroimaging studies provide critical insights regarding the mechanisms underlying these cognitive deficits as well as potential biologic targets for interventions. We measured several metabolite concentrations using ¹H magnetic resonance spectroscopy as well as cognitive performance in 19 female breast cancer survivors and 17 age-matched female controls. Women with breast cancer were all treated with chemotherapy. Results indicated significantly increased choline (Cho) and myo-inositol (mI) with correspondingly decreased N-acetylaspartate (NAA)/Cho and NAA/mI ratios in the breast cancer group compared to controls. The breast cancer group reported reduced executive function and memory, and subjective memory ability was correlated with mI and Cho levels in both groups. These findings provide preliminary evidence of an altered metabolic profile that increases our understanding of neurobiologic status post-breast cancer and chemotherapy.