Executive and Socio-cognitive Functions in Survivors of Primary Brain Tumor: Impact on Patients' Quality of Life

Overview

Significant advances in primary malignant brain tumors (PBT) treatment have led to dramatically improved survival, both in children and adults. However, survival has not come without a cost and aggressive treatment methods associated with significant long-term adverse effects, often referred to as "late effects" (Panigrahy \& Blüml, 2009). These effects are the medical, physical, cognitive and psychosocial sequelae associated with cancer and its treatments that generally emerge two to five years after treatment ends (e.g., Landier \& Bhatia, 2008). The most serious challenge survivors of brain tumors face may be cognitive dysfunction. One especially important cognitive domain is executive functioning, which refers to essential factors such as problem-solving, goal-directed behavior and the ability to maintain stable interpersonal relationships (Lezak et al., 2004). Despite the potential impact of executive impairments on behavioral regulation and quality of life, few studies were conducted with survivors of PBT specifically for the assessment of executive functioning. Another fundamental neuro-cognitive domain is social cognition, which refers to the ability to understand the intentions and beliefs of others (Frith \& Singer, 2008). Social cognitive deficits are expected to impair autonomy and relationships, but scarce attention has been devoted to the study of social cognition in survivors of PBT and no study has attempted to compare socio-cognitive data and measures of health-related quality of life. It is noteworthy that executive function and socio-cognitive skills improve throughout childhood and adolescence, and improvements in these skills have frequently been attributed to maturation of the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex (e.g., Tamnes et al., 2010). This suggests a greater impact of the disease and its treatment on these functions in children/adolescents.

First, the investigators will calculate the prevalence of cognitive and socio-cognitive deficits, by comparing the performances of patients (children/adolescents and adults) to normative data available for each tasks and to performances of healthy controls matched on socio-demographic criteria. Second, the investigators will compare the neuropsychological scores for cognitive and socio-cognitive tasks to health related quality of life (HRQOL) data (composite scores and by domains). Comparisons of neuropsychological and HRQOL scores will be performed between the two populations (children / adolescents and adults). Third, the investigators will compare the data from the two age groups for the aforementioned variables (cognitive and behavioral executive assessments, cognitive and affective TOM). The proximity of the tasks should provide valid elements of comparison. The investigators will compare the questionnaires in auto-and hetero-evaluation for each HRQOL scales, and also for executive behavioral questionnaires. Finally, to evaluate the investigators will compare the HRQOL patients/relatives' data to measure the potential impact of the disease on HRQOL of relatives of PBT survivors and the potential link between these data.