Background Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been used in oncology contexts as a promising tool with numerous benefits for various health-related and psychosocial outcomes. Despite the increasing popularity of MBIs, few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have examined their effects upon biological parameters. Specifically, no previous study has examined the effects of MBIs on extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are potentially important markers of health, disease, and stress. Moreover, the lack of RCTs is even more limited within the context of technology-mediated MBIs and long-term effects. Methods The current study protocol presents a two-arm, parallel, randomized controlled study investigating the effects of internet-supported mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) compared with treatment as usual (TAU). Primary outcomes are psychological distress and EV cargo of distressed participants with previous breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer diagnoses. Secondary outcomes are self-reported psychosocial and health-related measures, and additional biological markers. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline, 4 weeks after baseline (mid-point of the intervention), 8 weeks after baseline (immediately post-intervention), 24 weeks after baseline (after booster sessions), and 52 weeks after baseline. Our goal is to recruit at least 111 participants who have been diagnosed with breast, prostate, or colorectal cancer (cancer stage I to III), are between 18 and 65 years old, and have had primary cancer treatments completed between 3 months and 5 years ago. Half of the participants will be randomized to the TAU group, and the other half will participate in an 8-week online MBCT intervention with weekly group sessions via videoconference. The intervention also includes asynchronous homework, an online retreat after the fifth week, and 4 monthly booster sessions after completion of the 8-week programme. Discussion This study will allow characterizing the effects of internet-based MBCT on psychosocial and biological indicators in the context of cancer. The effects on circulating EVs will also be investigated, as a possible neurobiological pathway underlying mind-body intervention effects. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.govNCT04727593 (date of registration: 27 January 2021; date of record verification: 6 October 2021).

Cognitive complaints and alterations related to cancer may reduce well-being, quality of life, and daily functioning. More recently, prospective memory (PM), i.e., the ability to plan a future intention, to maintain it during a variable delay time in which people are typically engaged in other tasks, and to retrieve it when the expected circumstances arise, has fostered increased attention in cancer research. Examples are to remember to ask for a certain information during a medical appointment (event-based PM/EBPM) or to take medication at certain hours (time-based PM/TBPM). This work aimed to provide an overview of the main findings related to PM functioning in people with history of cancer. A qualitative systematic review of the literature was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines and 20 articles published between 2000 and 2020 were included. People with cancer history (vs. healthy controls) tended to report more PM complaints and worst objective PM performance, especially when considering EBPM tasks. Some treatments such as chemotherapy, androgen deprivation therapy, and radiotherapy negatively impacted PM. Importantly, changes in PM were associated with lower quality of life. Also, fatigue and depression appeared to contribute to PM impairment. A puzzling finding was the lack of association between objective and subjective measures of PM, which implies that different facets might underly cancer-related PM changes. Taken together, the inclusion of PM measures when probing cancer-related cognitive impairment is relevant not only to better assess and characterize the cancer experience across time, but also to inform interventions and cognitive rehabilitation approaches.

The current meta-analysis examined the effects of valence and arousal on source memory accuracy, including the identification of variables that moderate the magnitude and direction of those effects. Fifty-three studies, comprising 85 individual experiments (N = 3,040 participants), were selected. Three separate analyses focusing on valence effects (valence-based: negative-neutral; positive-neutral; negative-positive) and other three focusing exclusively on arousal (arousal-based: high-low; medium-low; high-medium) were considered. Effect sizes varied from very small to medium. For the valence-based analyses, source memory accuracy was impaired for emotional compared with neutral stimuli (dunb = −.14 for negative-neutral; dunb = −.11 for positive-neutral), with a similar performance found for the negative-positive comparison (dunb = −.04). In the case of arousal-based analyses, source memory was improved for stimuli with high and medium arousal versus low arousal (dunb = .27, dunb = .49, respectively), with no statistically significant difference between high and medium arousal stimuli (dunb = −.12). Emotion effects on source memory were modulated by methodological factors. These factors may account for the variety findings typically found in emotion-related source memory research and could be systematically addressed in future studies.