A novel brain functional-structural hybrid analysis to explain the effect of a 6-month psychosocial intervention on resilience in breast cancer

Abstract

To explore if pretreatment brain function/structure connectome could explain the response to a psychosocial intervention on resilience in breast cancer.  Between February 2018 and October 2021, women newly diagnosed with breast cancer were retrospectively enrolled from the Be Resilient to Breast Cancer (BRBC) trial and received a supportive-expressive therapy intervention. Baseline Resting-state Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) combined with Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) were administered and resilience was scored by 10-item Resilience Scale specific to Cancer (RS-SC-10) at baseline and after the intervention (6 months). Response to the supportive intervention on resilience was defined as > 0.5 standard deviation (SD) improvement at 6 months compared to baseline mean resilience score.  A total of 105 patients received intervention. At 6 months, the resilience score improved in 62.9 % (N = 66), defined as the Response group. Amygdala (53 %) and Hippocampus (15 %) in rs-fMRI and CorpusCallosum_ForcepsMinor (96 %) in DTI were recognized as the main significant brain regions associated with treatment response.  These preliminary data suggest that neuro-markers of brain function/structure connectome from MR imaging might be useful in evaluating response to behavioral interventions on resilience.