Fractionated Radiation-Induced Acute Encephalopathy in a Young Rat Model: Cognitive Dysfunction and Histologic Findings

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Radiation-induced cognitive dysfunction is a common and serious complication after radiation therapy of brain tumor, yet knowledge of its mechanism is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to establish a young rat model for acute radiation encephalopathy, at both cognitive and pathologic levels, induced by fractionated irradiation.

Radiation-Induced Cognitive Dysfunction After Different Schemes of Fractionated Whole Brain Irradiation

“…Absence of a difference in GFAP mRNA levels in hippocampus on the 4th and 8th week is probably due to initially higher expression of GFAP in this structure as compared with the frontal cortex. However, Zhou et al (2011) showed an increased expression of GFAP in hippocampus after fractionated gamma irradiation using immunohistochemical analysis. The latter result may be due to the higher dose of fractionation and a different fractionation mode.…”

“…Mechanism such as reactive astrogliosis are also involved in memory alteration (Zhou et al, 2011;Akiyama et al, 2001). Reactive astrogliosisis is typically characterized by astrocyte proliferation and hypertrophy (MacFabe et al, 2008).…”

“…About 50% of long-term survivors suffer cognitive deficiencies due to damage of healthy brain tissue (Johannesen et al, 2003). Moreover, patients with certain locations of tumor, for example nasopharyngeal carcinoma, have to receive radiation treatment of neck and face regions, thus the procedure inevitably involves irradiating the inferior temporal lobes (Zhou et al, 2011).…”

¿Pueden los suplementos de omega 3 prevenir la toxicidad neurocognitiva de los tratamientos oncológicos?

“…Estas últimas presentan gran potencia a dosis mínimas, actuando como sustancias antiinflamatorias o en procesos de resolución de procesos inflamatorios. Esto es de gran interés para evitar todos aquellos fenó-menos inflamatorios posibles precursores del deterioro cognitivo que se puede ocasionar por el uso de la radioterapia o la quimioterapia 10,11 .…”

A link between vascular damage and cognitive deficits after whole-brain radiation therapy for cancer: A clue to other types of dementia?

“…However, cognitive impairment is a well-documented consequence of WBRT (1)(2)(3)(4). In addition to acute encephalopathy (5,6), memory deficits have been noted in up to 50% of patients undergoing WBRT over a short period of several months. In addition, WBRT is reported to increase the rate of dementia three-fold in younger patients (< 65 years old, up to around 0.2% of irradiated persons) (7) and to lower the intelligence quotient (IQ) of children (8) over the longer term, i.e.…”