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Published on: January 11, 2016
Neural correlates of delayed visual-motor performance in children treated for brain tumours
Colleen Dockstader1, William Gaetz, Eric Bouffet
1The Hospital for Sick Children, Department of Psychology, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Insights
Children treated for brain tumors with cranial radiation show delayed neural processing and altered brain wave activity during visual-motor tasks. This suggests impaired neuronal function contributes to cognitive deficits in these patients.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Pediatric Oncology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Neural integrity is crucial for cognitive function.
- Children with neurological insults often experience cognitive impairments.
- Cranial radiation for pediatric brain tumors causes structural damage and cognitive deficits, with unknown underlying pathophysiology.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate neuronal function during visual-motor task performance in children treated with cranial radiation for brain tumors.
- To understand the real-time neural processing characteristics in this pediatric population.
Main Methods:
- Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to measure neural activity.
- 15 children treated with cranial radiation for Posterior Fossa malignant brain tumors and 17 healthy controls performed a visual-motor reaction time (RT) task.
- Analysis focused on neural activation latencies and brainwave bandwidths (alpha, beta, gamma).
Main Results:
- The patient group exhibited delayed neural activation latencies in visual and motor cortices compared to controls.
- Muted motor responses were observed in the alpha and beta bandwidths in patients.
- Potentiated visual and motor responses in the gamma bandwidth were found in the patient group, possibly indicating compensatory activity.
Conclusions:
- Children treated with cranial radiation for brain tumors demonstrate impaired neural processing during visual-motor tasks.
- Delays in visual and motor neuronal processing speed contribute to behavioral response delays.
- Altered brainwave activity, particularly increased gamma responses, may reflect compensatory mechanisms during cognitive tasks.
Abstract:
Both structural and functional neural integrity is critical for healthy cognitive function and performance. Across studies, it is evident that children who are affected by neurological insult commonly demonstrate impaired cognitive abilities. Children treated with cranial radiation for brain tumours suffer substantial structural damage and exhibit a particularly high correlation between the degree of neural injury and cognitive deficits. However the pathophysiology underlying impaired cognitive performance in this population, and many other paediatric populations affected by neurological injury or disease, is unknown. We wished to investigate the characteristics of neuronal function during visual-motor task performance in a group of children who were treated with cranial radiation for brain tumours. We used Magnetoencephalography to investigate neural function during visual-motor reaction time (RT) task performance in 15 children treated with cranial radiation for Posterior Fossa malignant brain tumours and 17 healthy controls. We found that, relative to controls, the patient group showed: 1) delayed latencies for neural activation in both visual and motor cortices; 2) muted motor responses in the alpha (8-12Hz) and beta (13-29Hz) bandwidths, and 3) potentiated visual and motor responses in the gamma (30-100Hz) bandwidth. Collectively these observations indicate impaired neural processing during visual-motor RT performance in this population and that delays in the speed of visual and motor neuronal processing both contribute to the delays in the behavioural response. As increases in gamma activity are often observed with increases in attention and effort, increased gamma activities in the patient group may reflect compensatory neural activity during task performance. This is the first study to investigate neural function in real-time during cognitive performance in paediatric brain tumour patients.
