New Microbiota Research Could Lift the Fog on Chemobrain Written by Dr Sarah-Jane Leigh, Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at APC Microbiome Ireland, an SFI Research Centre headquartered at University College Cork
“The mechanisms underpinning these chemobrain symptoms are poorly understood, posing a serious impediment to their clinical management” Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in Europe and imposes significant human and economic costs. Research in recent decades has primarily focused on reducing mortality and relapse rates, leading to considerable improvements to established treatment regimens as well as the advent of new therapies, specifically the development of immunotherapies and more targeted anti-cancer agents. These advancements in treatment options have dramatically improved patient care and survival for several cancers and have also exposed a number of issues around the long-term side effects of cancer therapies that impact quality of life.
What is chemobrain? A large subset of cancer patients and survivors frequently report neuropsychiatric symptoms and impairments during and following cancer treatment, including impaired cognition, increased incidence of mood and anxiety disorders, and increased pain and fatigue which collectively resembles “brain fog” and has been termed “chemobrain”. These impairments are most frequent during and immediately following therapy, although some cancer survivors
experience these symptoms for decades after the resolution of their cancer, interfering with their well-being and return to normal life. These neuropsychiatric impairments are often difficult to quantify: while patients’ subjective reports indicate sluggish thinking and poorer cognitive performance following therapy, these are often not well captured by standard neuropsychological testing utilised in the majority of studies to date. This is most likely because standard neuropsychological tests were originally designed for diagnosis of focal lesions of the central and peripheral nervous systems, rather than diffuse damage throughout the brain. Approaches using methods from cognitive psychology, which are designed to assess cognitive performance within healthy populations, have identified that cancer patients and survivors suffer from difficulties with concentration and attention, short-term memory and executive function.
What the Research Tells us While most research so far has shown that these neuropsychiatric symptoms and impairments are associated with traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens in cancer
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