The study of patients with breast cancer suggests "chemo brain" really

Here is a new proof that the condition known as "chemo brain" is real: the study of breast cancer patients finds that women who had chemotherapy along with surgery to treat their disease was more trouble kicking their brain is in full swing, than women who were treated with surgery alone. They also performed much worse on tests of mental function than the group of healthy women who served as controls.
In a study published Monday in Archives of Neurology, included 25 breast cancer survivors underwent surgery and chemotherapy, 19 breast cancer survivors underwent surgery but not chemotherapy, and 18 women with no history of breast cancer who were selected because of their age, educational level and menopausal status were similar to those of women who had chemotherapy. All study volunteers were asked to solve a series of puzzles while their brain activity was recorded in the MRI machine. Volunteers also took a standard test to assess their "executive functions", and another test to assess how well they thought their brains work.
FMRI results showed that the brain areas involved in memory, planning and attention were less active in women who had chemotherapy as well as in other breast cancer survivors or healthy people. Women in the chemotherapy took longer to recognize patterns in the card-sorting game to run on your computer. Worse yet, "although chemotherapy treated women took longer for this task, they still made more mistakes," the study says.
The results will probably not be a surprise for these women - in the tests used to assess how well they thought their own brain functions, women who reported more problems with the chemo executive function tasks than women in the other two groups.
(The researchers also noticed some functional differences in the brain of breast cancer survivors who have not had chemotherapy, but these differences do not seem to translate into problems with problem solving, problems.)
The results show that chemotherapy may lead to a "neurotoxic brain damage," the study authors wrote.
But it is also possible that the disease itself may be responsible. In the end, women who received chemotherapy, usually with a diagnosis of more advanced cases of breast cancer than women who were treated with surgery alone. Tease also aggressive cancer or chemotherapy is used to deal with it is most to blame will take further research, the authors write.
Summary of the study can be found here.