ORCID Profile
0000-0003-1159-5524
Current Organisation
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2019
Publisher: Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc
Date: 28-08-2018
DOI: 10.4088/JCP.18M12137
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1177/20552076231192754
Abstract: Chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) is a distressing and increasingly recognized long-term sequela reported by breast cancer patients following cancer treatment. There is an urgent but unmet clinical need for treatments that improve CRCI. In this context, we proposed the use of a novel cognitive enhancement strategy called Neuroflex to target CRCI experienced by breast cancer survivors. The primary aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of Neuroflex, a novel digital cognitive enhancement strategy, in breast and gynecologic cancer survivors with CRCI. Secondary analyses focused on whether improvements in performance on Neuroflex were associated with improvement in subjective cognitive complaints and objective cognitive performance measures. Participants ( N = 21) completed an average of 7.42 hours of Neuroflex training per week, an average of 44.5 (±1.01) hours total, and had a 100% completion rate. Participants exhibited significant improvement in self-reported cognitive function as well as significant improvement on tasks of verbal learning and memory and auditory working memory. Participants also exhibited improvement in mood, as well as improvement on a disability assessment. Results demonstrate feasibility and that breast cancer survivors are capable of completing a lengthy and challenging cognitive training program. Secondly, Neuroflex may confer specific cognitive benefits to both self-reported and objective performance. Results strongly support further investigation of Neuroflex in a larger controlled trial to establish efficacy for CRCI symptoms. Further studies may also result in optimization of this digital intervention for women with CRCI.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 05-08-2016
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 07-08-2020
Publisher: Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Date: 20-07-2020
DOI: 10.1097/GME.0000000000001613
Abstract: Menopause is associated with increasing cognitive complaints and older women are at increased risk of developing Alzheimer disease compared to men. However, there is difficulty in early markers of risk using objective performance measures. We investigated the impact of subjective cognitive complaints on the cortical structure in a s le of younger postmenopausal women. Data for this cross-sectional study were drawn from the baseline visit of a longer double-blind study examining estrogen-cholinergic interactions in normal postmenopausal women. Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging was acquired on 44 women, aged 50-60 years and gray-matter volume was defined by voxel-based morphometry. Subjective measures of cognitive complaints and postmenopausal symptoms were obtained as well as tests of verbal episodic and working memory performance. Increased levels of cognitive complaints were associated with lower gray-matter volume in the right medial temporal lobe ( r = −0.445, P 0.002, R 2 = 0.2). Increased depressive symptoms and somatic complaints were also related to increased cognitive complaints and smaller medial temporal volumes but did not mediate the effect of cognitive complaints. In contrast, there was no association between performance on the memory tasks and subjective cognitive ratings, or medial temporal lobe volume. The findings of the present study indicate that the level of reported cognitive complaints in postmenopausal women may be associated with reduced gray-matter volume which may be associated with cortical changes that may increase risk of future cognitive decline. Video Summary: links.lww.com/MENO/A626.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2018
Publisher: Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Date: 2019
Abstract: Sports-related concussion is associated with a range of short-term functional deficits that are commonly thought to recover within a two-week post-injury period for most, but certainly not all, persons. Resting state electroencephalography (rs-EEG) may prove to be an affordable, accessible, and sensitive method of assessing severity of brain injury and rate of recovery after a concussion. This article presents a systematic review of rs-EEG in sports-related concussion. A systematic review of articles published in the English language, up to June 2017, was retrieved via PsychINFO, Medline, Medline In Process, Embase, SportDiscus, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library, Reviews, and Trials. The following key words were used for database searches: electroencephalography, quantitative electroencephalography, qEEG, cranio-cerebral trauma, mild traumatic brain injury, mTBI, traumatic brain injury, brain concussion, concussion, brain damage, sport, athletic, and athlete. Observational, cohort, correlational, cross-sectional, and longitudinal studies were all included in the current review. Sixteen articles met inclusion criteria, which included data on 504 athletes and 367 controls. All 16 articles reported some abnormality in rs-EEG activity after a concussion however, the cortical rhythms that were affected varied. Despite substantial methodological and analytical differences across the 16 studies, the current review suggests that rs-EEG may provide a reliable technique to identify persistent functional changes in athletes after a concussion. Because of the varied approaches, however, considerable work is needed to establish a systematic methodology to assess its efficacy as a marker of return-to-play.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2022
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-02-2022
DOI: 10.1002/HUP.2838
Abstract: Older women are at increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease compared to men. One proposed reason is that following menopause there is a decline in estrogens. Estrogens are important for cholinergic functioning and attenuate the impact of cholinergic antagonists on cognitive performance in postmenopausal women. Self‐reported or subjective cognitive complaints in middle or older age may represent a harbinger of cognitive decline and those who endorse cognitive complaints appear more likely to develop future cognitive impairment. However, the response of in iduals with cognitive complaints after menopause to estrogen and the relationship to cholinergic functioning has not been investigated. This study investigated the effect of estrogen treatment using 17β‐estradiol on cognitive performance following anticholinergic blockade in postmenopausal women and the relationship of this interaction with the level of self‐reported (subjective) postmenopausal cognitive complaints. Forty postmenopausal women (aged 50–60 years) completed a 3‐month treatment regimen of either 1 mg oral estradiol or placebo. Participants then completed four challenge days in which they completed cognitive and behavioral tasks after one of four cholinergic antagonist drug conditions (oral mecamylamine (MECA), intravenous scopolamine, combined MECA and scopolamine, or PLC). Compared to PLC, the estradiol treated group performed worse on attention tasks under cholinergic challenge including the choice reaction time task and the critical flicker fusion task. In addition, participants who endorsed greater cognitive complaints showed reduced performance on the N‐back working memory task, regardless of whether they received estradiol treatment. The findings of this study indicate that estradiol treatment was unable to mitigate anticholinergic blockade in postmenopausal women with subjective cognitive complaints, and worsened performance on attention tasks. Moreover, the present study suggests that greater levels of cognitive complaints following menopause may be associated with an underlying decline in cholinergic function that may manifest as an inability to compensate during working memory tasks.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 05-2015
Publisher: Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Date: 06-2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-2020
DOI: 10.2147/NDT.S274165
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 23-12-2021
DOI: 10.3389/FPSYT.2021.721874
Abstract: Late-life depression (LLD) is a debilitating condition that is associated with poor response to antidepressant medications and deficits in cognitive performance. Nicotinic cholinergic stimulation has emerged as a potentially effective candidate to improve cognitive performance in patients with cognitive impairment. Previous studies of nicotinic stimulation in animal models and human populations with cognitive impairment led to examining potential cognitive and mood effects of nicotinic stimulation in older adults with LLD. We report results from a pilot study of transdermal nicotine in LLD testing whether nicotine treatment would enhance cognitive performance and mood. The study used electroencephalography (EEG) recordings as a tool to test for potential mechanisms underlying the effect of nicotine. Eight non-smoking participants with LLD completed EEG recordings at baseline and after 12 weeks of transdermal nicotine treatment (NCT02816138). Nicotine augmentation treatment was associated with improved performance on an auditory oddball task. Analysis of event-related oscillations showed that nicotine treatment was associated with reduced beta desynchronization at week 12 for both standard and target trials. The change in beta power on standard trials was also correlated with improvement in mood symptoms. This pilot study provides preliminary evidence for the impact of nicotine in modulating cortical activity and improving mood in depressed older adults and shows the utility of using EEG as a marker of functional engagement in nicotinic interventions in clinical geriatric patients.
Location: United States of America
No related grants have been discovered for Alexander Conley.