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Project

Cancer and pregnancy: effects of prenatal exposure to cancer treatment on neurocognitive development: an MRI and ERP study

The objective of this project is to investigate the long-term neurocognitive effects of prenatal exposure to cancer and cancer treatment (surgery, radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy). Advanced MRI techniques (multishell Diffusion-weighted Imaging (DWI), resting-state functional MRI and high-resolution structural MRI) and Event Related Potentials (ERP) are applied in order to have an as accurate and complete assessment as possible.

In this project we aim to answer the following research questions:

- Are there differences in GM volume, WM microstructure, functional and/or structural connectivity between children who had prenatal exposure to cancer and its treatment and matched controls born after an uneventful pregnancy? Is there a link with neurocognitive performance and/or behavior?

- Are there differences in GM volume, WM microstructure, functional and/or structural connectivity between late preterm and aterm children? Is there a link with neurocognitive performance and/or behavior?

- Is there a difference in ERP response in attentional tasks between children who had prenatal exposure to chemotherapy and matched controls born after an uneventful pregnancy?

Date:1 Sep 2016 →  30 Sep 2022
Keywords:Cancer, Cognitive development, MRI, Event-Related Potentials, Cancer in Pregnancy
Disciplines:Endocrinology and metabolic diseases, Gynaecology and obstetrics, Nursing
Project type:PhD project