Peer-reviewed article
QOL-09. WHOLE-BRAIN WHITE MATTER NETWORK CONNECTIVITY IS DISRUPTED BY PEDIATRIC BRAIN TUMOR TREATMENT
Oyefiade A, Beera K, Moxon-Emre I, Skocic J, Bartels U et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This neuroscience study examines brain structural changes in children who have survived pediatric brain tumors and received cancer treatment. Using MRI imaging and network analysis, researchers compared 41 brain tumor survivors with 41 typically developing children to identify differences in white matter connectivity. The study found that radiation treatment and surgery-only treatment produced different patterns of disruption in specific brain regions. While the research identifies vulnerable brain structures following pediatric cancer treatment, it focuses on neurobiological mechanisms rather than child well-being outcomes.
Key points
- Brain tumor survivors treated with radiation showed increased connectivity centrality in the left insular region but decreased centrality in the right pallidum
- Surgery-only treated survivors showed decreased connectivity centrality in the right interparietal sulcus
- White matter connectivity patterns from the right pallidum could distinguish brain tumor survivors from typically developing children with 77% accuracy
- Different treatment modalities (radiation versus surgery-only) produced distinct patterns of white matter disruption
Limitations
This is a neuroimaging study that describes structural brain changes but does not measure functional outcomes, cognitive abilities, quality of life, or psychological well-being in survivors. The cross-sectional design cannot establish whether observed connectivity differences are causally linked to clinical or developmental problems.
Abstract
Abstract INTRODUCTION Treatments for pediatric brain tumors (PBT) are neurotoxic and lead to long-term deficits that are driven by the perturbation of underlying white matter (WM). It is unclear if and how treatment may impair WM connectivity across the entire brain. METHODS Magnetic resonance images from 41 PBT survivors (mean age: 13.19 years, 53% M) and 41 typically developing (TD) children (mean age: 13.32 years, 51% M) were analyzed. Image reconstruction, segmentation, and node parcellation were completed in FreeSurfer. DTI maps and probabilistic streamline generation were completed in MRtrix3. Connectivity matrices were based on the number of streamlines connecting two nodes and the mean DTI (FA) index across streamlines. We used graph theoretical analyses to define structural differences between groups, and random forest (RF) analyses to identify hubs that reliably classify PBT and TD children. RESULTS For survivors treated with radiation, betweeness centrality was greater in the left insular (p < 0.000) but smaller in the right pallidum (p < 0.05). For survivors treated without radiation (surgery-only), betweeness centrality was smaller in the right interparietal sulcus (p < 0.05). RF analyses showed that differences in WM connectivity from the right pallidum to other parts of the brain reliably classified PBT survivors from TD children (classification accuracy = 77%). CONCLUSIONS The left insular, right pallidum, and right inter-parietal sulcus are structurally perturbed hubs in PBT survivors. WM connectivity from the right pallidum is vulnerable to the long-term effects of treatment for PBT.