A New Method to Relieve “Chemo Brain”
March 2024
By Mahati Karthikeyan
Edited by Harvey Chen
For people who go through chemotherapy, the side effects can be demanding damaging and difficult to deal with. One particular side effect for people who have to go through chemo treatments areis impaired cognitive effects capabilities such as “memory impairment or difficulty concentrating”(concentrating” or more commonly known as “chemo brain” (Trafton, 2024). The exact reason for chemo brainthis term is not exactly knowncompletely understood yet but is certainly connected to hormone related chemotherapies and can result in cognitive impairment symptoms as stated above. The brain fog resulting from this can be distressing to the cancer patients who areis most likely already experiencing anxiety and depression due to the diagnosis.
One new method to help with “with “chemo brain” that was recently in the news is simulating “gamma waves” , a type of brain wave affected by chemotherapy , which could relieve the symptoms .symptoms. This treatment was proposed to help with “memory loss and other cognitive functions”. The new method takes placeeffect as one gets exposed to light and sound of about 40 hertz.
How did this idea come to be? Originally, Thethe idea was proposed to be usedapplied to help Alzheimer patients with memory loss. Specifically, the chemo brain which affects the gamma rays in the brain is the same area that is affected by Alzheimer's disease as well. Then this study was conducted with mice. The mice were subjected to light and sound which flickered at 40 hertz(hertz (approximately the wavelength of gamma rays ,, 25-80 hertz). The studies with the miceIt showed that this environment was effective at simulatingeffectively mimicked gamma rays in the brain. This method was also effective successful on humans which was shown through clinical trials.
So, the scientists who conducted these studies wondered if it would also work on chemotherapy patients. Chemotherapy iswas known in general to cause inflammation in the brain along with potential loss in white matter, which is largely responsible for a lot of the communication between among parts of the brain. Chemotherapy It is also involved in the loss of myelin, an important fibrous tissue of nerves taking part in involved in neurotransmission. Therefore, “chemo brain” and the its neurological effects of this caught the eye of the scientists. A test was done with mice who had a common chemotherapy drug injected into their skin. Then, after another 5 days, they were given another dose. One group of the mice were subjected to the gamma rays while the other group just got the chemo injections. The mice that were exposed to the light and the gamma rays showed reduced symptoms of brain fog, inflammation, and other common side effects of chemotherapy.
This effect lasted for about 4 months in the mice. These results are overall promising and show a potential new path for patients to have an improved cognitive function after receiving chemotherapytreatments. However, this method is very novel and still has to go through multiple clinical trials to see the implications on humans who have gone through chemotherapy. The scientistsscientists’ goal is to get this to the clinical setting and have itthis applied to other neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease as well.
Sources to learn more about the “Chemo brain” treatment:
A noninvasive treatment for “chemo brain” – MIT News https://news.mit.edu/2024/noninvasive-treatment-chemo-brain-0306#:~:text=MIT%20researchers%20have%20now%20shown
Fat Molecule in Brain Linked to Chemo Brain – Schmelling, NIH https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2022/chemo-brain-prevention-s1p#:~:text=Often%20referred%20to%20as%20cancer
