Tatiana Wolfe, PhD

Research Program: Cancer Therapeutics Faculty Rank: Assistant Professor Tenure Track Campus: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College: College of Medicine Department: PSY Brain Imaging Research Center

Cancer Research Interest

• Disease Site Focus: Brain, Breast, No Specific Disease Site, Hematologic Malignancies
• Research Focus Area: Diagnosis/ Prognosis, Treatment
• Type of Research: Translational, Clinical, Basic
• Research Keywords: Cancer related cognitive impairment, Chemotherapy related brain injury, Myelin, Magnetic resonance spectroscopy MRS, Magnetic resonance image MRI
• Research Interest Statement: My central research interest is to investigate the alterations in synaptic health that occur in chemotherapy-treated patients to inform possible future mitigation strategies. Cancer therapy, particularly chemotherapy, negatively impacts brain health, leading to cognitive deficits in over 75% of all survivors. These cognitive difficulties encompass learning, memory, executive function, and psychomotor speed, affecting daily functioning. Chemotherapy disrupts neuronal metabolism, myelin formation, and neuroplasticity. While the functional detriments associated with chemotherapy are clinically obvious, the very nature of chemotherapy-induced changes in myelin-related synaptic health across the brain remains elusive. Recent research has observed that structural integrity (measured by diffusion fraction of anisotropy) and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) are both reduced bilaterally in the posterior cingulate gyrus of chemotherapy patients, and total creatine (tCr) is abnormally reduced in these same areas. Separate studies performed in cancer survivors also report that (i) the cingulate cortex shows reduced function during task and at rest and (ii) myelin fractions are lower in the cingulate’s interconnecting white matter (e.g., cingulum bundle, prefrontal, thalamic ramifications). Given the primal role the cingulate cortex plays in cognition, these findings indicate that myelin-related synaptic dysfunction may play a mechanistic role in cancer therapy induced cognitive impairments. Investigating this further is a necessary step to the development of preventive and regenerative interventions. Despite the understanding that activity-dependent myelination is a known mechanism of adult brain plasticity that is reported to restore function in other conditions of aplastic myelination, this knowledge cannot be implemented in cancer chemotherapy patients until more is known about treatment’s effects on synaptic health.

Contact Information

• Email Address: TWOLFE@UAMS.EDU
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Recent Publications

• Barber SM, Wolfe T, Steele AG, [et al.]. A novel minimally invasive and versatile kyphoplasty balloon-based model of porcine spinal cord injury. Frontiers in neurology. 2024 15:1422357. PMID: 39087009. PMCID: PMC11289774.
• Askar W, Nadeem I, Dalby J, [et al., including Wolfe T]. The Use of Intracranial Vessel Wall Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Detect a Presumptive Syphilitic Brain Aneurysm. Sexually transmitted diseases. 2021 48(12):e183-e185. PMID: 33783407.
• Olmsted ZT, Stigliano C, Scimemi A, [et al., including Wolfe T]. Transplantable human motor networks as a neuron-directed strategy for spinal cord injury. iScience. 2021 24(8):102827. PMID: 34381965. PMCID: PMC8333163.
• Wolfe T, Hoffman K, Hogan MK, [et al.]. Quantification of Myelinated Nerve Fraction and Degeneration in Spinal Cord Neuropil by SHIFT MRI. Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI. 2021 53(4):1162-1174. PMID: 33098256.