Potential Use of Nicotinic Receptor Agonists for the Treatment of Chemotherapy-Induced Cognitive Deficits

Abstract

Over the past several decades, research in both humans and animals has established the existence of persistent cognitive deficits resulting from exposure to chemotherapeutic agents. Nevertheless, there has been very little research addressing the treatment of chemotherapy-induced cognitive deficits and there is currently no approved treatment for this condition, often referred to as 'chemo-brain.' Several drugs that enhance cholinergic function and/or increase nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) activity have been demonstrated to improve cognitive performance and/or reverse cognitive deficits in animals, findings that have led to the use of these compounds to treat the cognitive deficits present in a variety of disorders including attention deficit disorder, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia. Although nAChR agonists have not been assessed for their efficacy in treating chemotherapy-induced cognitive deficits, these drugs have been shown to produce measureable increases in performance on several behavioral tasks known to be disrupted by exposure to chemotherapeutic agents. While the processes underlying chemotherapy-induced cognitive deficits may differ from those underlying other disorders, there appears to be a broad spectrum of application for the use of nAChR agonists to improve cognitive function. Therefore, studies examining the use of these drugs in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced cognitive deficits should be conducted as they may be of benefit for the treatment of 'chemo-brain.'

Keywords: Chemo-brain; Chemotherapy; Cognition; Cognitive deficit; Nicotine; Nicotinic agonists.