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Updated: Mar 19, 2026
Tracking the Mammary Architectural Features and Detecting Breast Cancer with Magnetic Resonance Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Published on: December 15, 2014
Functional connectivity change of brain default mode network in breast cancer patients after chemotherapy
Hui Miao1, Xingui Chen2, Yunwen Yan3
1Center for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
Introduction:
Complaint about attention disorders is common among breast cancer patients who have undergone chemotherapy, which may be associated with the default mode network (DMN). To validate this hypothesis, we investigated the DMN functional connectivity (FC) change and its relationship with the attention function in breast cancer patients (BC) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI).
Methods:
Twenty-two BC treated with chemotherapy and 22 healthy controls (HC) were recruited into this study. The FC between the DMN's hubs and regions of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) and medial temporal lobe (MTL) subsystems was respectively calculated for each participant.
Results:
The statistical result showed significantly lower connectivity in dMPFC and MTL subsystems in the BC group. In addition, the partial correlation analysis result indicated that the low connectivity of some brain regions in MTL subsystem was correlated with attention dysfunction following BC chemotherapy.
Conclusion:
These results suggest that the functional disconnection in MTL subsystem of the DMN may have association with attention function of BC after chemotherapy.
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