First chemo brain & now potential radio brain:WBR & possible dementia

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Recently proof of long term brain changes due to chemo has been published making chemo brain a reality not the result of patient imagination.
Now research on rats submitted to whole brain radiation (WBR) appears to make a link with dementia.

Study Suggests Underlying Cause of Dementia after Cancer Treatment

WINSTON-SALEM, NC -- November 7, 2006 -- Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have identified changes in brain chemistry that may be associated with the dementia that many cancer patients develop after whole-brain radiation treatment.

"By identifying exactly how radiation causes these side effects, our hope is that we can find a way to prevent or reverse them," said Lei Shi, MD, PhD, lead author and a research fellow.

Whole-brain radiation is widely used to treat recurrent brain tumors as well as to prevent breast cancer, lung cancer and malignant melanoma from spreading to the brain. About 200,000 people receive the treatments annually. Starting at about a year post-treatment, up to one-half develop progressive memory problems.

Researchers don't know precisely how radiation injures the brain, but suspect it causes changes in the brain's communication system. To test this theory, Shi and colleagues evaluated rats that had been treated with radiation and developed learning and memory impairments.

Today, at the annual meeting of the Radiation Research Society in Philadelphia, the researchers said they found changes in brain receptors for glutamate – a neurotransmitter, or molecule that carries signals between nerve cells. They said the receptors change in composition as a result of whole-brain irradiation and that the changes seem to be associated with cognitive deficits.

These findings are significant because they may lay the groundwork for developing new therapies to prevent or reverse these potentially devastating impairments induced by whole-brain irradiation.

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