title: Functional MRI in medulloblastoma survivors supports prophylactic reading intervention during tumor treatment.
abstract: Development of reading skills is vulnerable to disruption in children treated for brain tumors. Interventions, remedial and prophylactic, are needed to mitigate reading and other learning difficulties faced by survivors. A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was conducted to investigate long-term effects of a prophylactic reading intervention administered during radiation therapy in children treated for medulloblastoma. The fMRI study included 19 reading-intervention (age 11.7 ± 0.6 years) and 21 standard-of-care (age 12.1 ± 0.6 years) medulloblastoma survivors, and 21 typically developing children (age 12.3 ± 0.6 years). The survivors were 2.5 [1.2, 5.4] years after completion of tumor therapies and reading-intervention survivors were 2.9 [1.6, 5.9] years after intervention. Five fMRI tasks (Rapid Automatized Naming, Continuous Performance Test using faces and letters, orthographic and phonological processing of letter pairs, implicit word reading, and story reading) were used to probe reading-related neural activation. Woodcock-Johnson Reading Fluency, Word Attack, and Sound Awareness subtests were used to evaluate reading abilities. At the time of fMRI, Sound Awareness scores were significantly higher in the reading-intervention group than in the standard-of-care group (p = 0.046). Brain activation during the fMRI tasks was detected in left inferior frontal, temporal, ventral occipitotemporal, and subcortical regions, and differed among the groups (p < 0.05, FWE). The pattern of group activation differences, across brain areas and tasks, was a normative trend in the reading-intervention group. Standardized reading scores and patterns of brain activation provide evidence of long-term effects of prophylactic reading intervention in children treated for medulloblastoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiological Sciences, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
authors.forename: Heather M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Conklin
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiological Sciences, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Scoggins
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
authors.forename: Yimei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
authors.forename: Xingyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiological Sciences, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA.
authors.forename: Melissa M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
authors.forename: Shawna L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Palmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
authors.forename: Amar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gajjar
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiological Sciences, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA. robert.ogg@stjude.org.
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Ogg
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D007808:Language Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008527:Medulloblastoma / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011932:Reading; D017741:Survivors; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Brain tumor; Cancer survivors; Children; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Reading intervention