Deaths from cancer have declined significantly over the past several decades. However, a diagnosis of cancer and its treatment are not without their consequences. Cancer survivors often struggle with a host of physical and mental concerns after treatment has ended, one of which is cognitive impairment, or “chemo brain.” Chemo brain has been shown to have significantly negative economic, social, and functional implications as survivors as it can prevent survivors’ from readily returning to their normal daily activities. It is crucial that we identify strategies for treating chemo brain, thereby improving cancer survivors’ quality of life.
Physical activity is a lifestyle behavior that has been consistently associated with improved health in cancer survivors. Preliminary research has suggested that it might help chemo brain, but this work has been conducted in small samples of homogeneous survivors and is not representative of the entire population of cancer survivors. We know little about the relationship between physical activity and the brain in young vs. old, white vs. black vs. latinx, or rural vs. urban survivors. These factors have been important in other areas of cancer survivorship and may represent key targets for future interventions. Understanding these relationships is critical if we hope to design physical activity programs for specific groups of survivors.
Our overarching research question is to better understand the relationships between physical activity, sedentary behavior, and cognitive and brain health during long-term cancer survivorship and how this association may vary across diverse groups of cancer survivors. Accordingly, our aims are as follows:
1. Quantify the association between physical activity and cognitive and brain health in individuals previously diagnosed with cancer. We hypothesize that survivors who are more active (e.g., more moderate-to-vigorous, light, and total physical activity) will demonstrate preserved brain structure (e.g., greater hippocampal volume and white matter integrity), function (e.g., resting state functional connectivity in several networks), and cognitive functioning (e.g., better executive functioning, faster processing speed).
2. Quantify the relationship between sedentary behavior and cognitive and brain health in those with a history of cancer. We hypothesize that more sedentary survivors will demonstrate more deteriorated brain structure and function and poorer cognitive functioning.
3. Explore these associations within different strata of cancer survivors (e.g., age, race, environment). We hypothesize that older survivors, survivors of color (i.e., Black), rural-dwelling survivors, and those who received chemotherapy will demonstrate more deteriorated brain structure and function and poorer cognitive functioning.
Estimated duration: 24 months.