What Is The Chemobrain?

Doctors and researchers use the term chemobrain to refer to cognitive decline caused by cancer treatment, especially chemotherapy. Most of them define it as a reduction in mental acuity, impaired memory function, and difficulty in completing tasks or acquiring new skills.

Although chemobrain is initially associated with patients treated with chemotherapy; radiation therapy and combination with medications can also cause these effects. To these possible causes are also added other personal risk factors, such as age and the presence of psychopathological symptoms.

How has chemobrain been detected in patients who have received chemotherapy?

Thanks to advances in medicine, the survival rate against cancer has increased. It is still a terrible disease, but it is no longer necessarily fatal.

Thus, many patients, after the intervention, regain their normal life. This fact has produced that a part of the research has focused on the side effects or sequelae that cancer treatments leave in people who overcome it.

This is when various changes are noticed. Small forgetfulness, difficulties in recovering habitual elements, needing more time to do ordinary tasks, problems being able to carry out two simple tasks at the same time or having less control of attention. They are sequelae that can produce anxiety and a feeling of ineffectiveness.

That is, patients realize that “something is not quite right” and that these difficulties occur after being treated with chemotherapy. Depending on premorbid factors related to physical health and psychopathological conditions, each person will have a different development in these cognitive symptoms.

Causes of chemobrain

Thanks to functional magnetic resonance imaging, it has been shown that during treatment the quality of vascular irrigation decreases, in some cases less glucose reaching the brain. This is observed in certain areas of the subcortical-frontal region or in areas near the hippocampus associated with memory, which appear underactive on MRI.

Studies also show that months after treatment ends, the quality of the nutrient supply is restored. Only in 10% of those affected does this type of problem persist over time, since in most cases, over two and a half years, it returns to the base level.

Another cause of chemobrain is found in oligodendrocytes. These cells play a crucial role in the central nervous system by producing myelin, the protective covering that keeps nerve fibers functioning. If myelin is not renewed, communication between nerve cells is damaged.

Mark Noble of the University of Rochester and his colleagues showed that the oligodendrocyte cells had virtually disappeared from the brains of the mice six months after treatment with 5-FU.

According to Noble, these results may explain some neurological side effects associated with chemotherapy, such as memory loss, difficulty concentrating and, in more extreme cases, vision problems and even dementia.

Chemobrain treatment

First, an initial assessment is carried out to find out what the patient’s situation is, whether or not they present a deficit and what their complaints are. Once the program is finished, the evaluation is repeated to obtain information on the immediate results of the same workshop; After six months, an assessment is carried out again to see the evolution, as well as the maintenance of the objectives achieved.

General guidelines for treating chemobrain 

• Take up hobbies.
• Write down appointments and what is considered important in an agenda.
• Resume reading.
• Learn a language.
• Do crossword puzzles.
• Practice physical exercise, as it helps both the heart and the brain; as far as possible and with medical supervision.
• Take care of hydration and nutrition, avoid high consumption of sugar and animal fats.
• Eat chocolate and coffee in moderate doses.
• Sleep well.
• Try to manage emotions to decrease anxiety and feelings of frustration.