The moderator for the effects of the disconnection of white matter tract on postoperative cognitive function in patients with brain tumors

Poster Session D - Monday, April 15, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Kota Ebina¹ (ebina18n@gmail.com), Mie Matsui¹, Masashi Kinoshita¹, Yuta Takiguchi¹, Mitsutoshi Nakada¹; ¹Kanazawa university, Kanazawa, Japan

In patients with brain tumors, damage to the eloquent white matter tracts can lead to permanent functional impairment postoperatively. However, there are individual differences in the relationship between the extent of white matter tract damage and cognitive impairment. In this study, we focused on the left frontal aslant tract (FAT), which involved verbal fluency, and investigated whether the extent of the impact of the left FAT damage on postoperative verbal fluency differs by age. Participants were twenty-six patients with brain tumors who underwent brain tumor resection. The mean age was 47.5 (14.5) years. Verbal fluency was measured using a letter fluency test (LFT) and a category fluency test (CFT). We retrospectively collected data at more than three months postoperatively for all except two patients. The probability of disconnection of the left FAT was computed using Tractotron software. The multiple regression analysis showed that age significantly affected LFT scores (β = -0.50, p = 0.007), whereas FAT damage was not significant. The interaction between age and FAT damage was significant (β = -0.55, p = 0.04). For the CFT, age was marginally significant (β = -0.33, p = 0.07), whereas FAT damage was not. The interaction between age and FAT damage was marginally associated with CFT scores (β = -0.48, p = 0.08). We found that the impact of the left FAT damage on postoperative verbal fluency varied by age. The results suggested that damage to the left FAT might lead to chronic impairment of verbal fluency in older patients.

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