Schedule of Events | Symposia

Early cerebellar damage disrupts typical cognitive development in pediatric tumor patients

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Rebecca Tegiacchi¹ (rt6202a@american.edu), Claire Gellner¹, Elizabeth Malloy¹, Meredith Goyette², Karin Walsh², Catherine Stoodley²; ¹American University, ²Children's National Medical Center

Children with developmental cerebellar damage are at increased risk for a range of adverse long-term outcomes. Different cerebellar subregions support different functions, suggesting that motor, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes will depend on the location of the lesion within the cerebellum. Further, the cerebellum is considered a “learning machine”, and previous studies have indicated that earlier cerebellar damage is associated with poorer long-term outcomes. We hypothesized that developmental cerebellar damage disrupts skill learning in a lesion- and age-specific manner. We used longitudinal motor, cognitive and behavioral neuropsychological scores to determine the relationship(s) between lesion location, age of tumor, and behavioral outcomes in 53 children with a history of cerebellar tumor (32 male, 21 female; age at diagnosis 6.7±4.1 years). We predicted that neuropsychological scores would decline over time in a lesion-specific manner, indicating loss of learning in specific domains, and that younger age at resection will be associated with a steeper drop in performance over time. Anterior and medial lesions were associated with impaired motor scores, and lesions in the posterolateral cerebellum were associated with cognitive deficits, reflecting established cerebellar functional subregions. Children who underwent tumor resection at a younger age (<4 years) showed a greater decrease in standard scores over time compared to patients with tumor resections later in development (>12 years), indicating that cerebellar learning mechanisms are important for typical development. These preliminary findings indicate that the location of lesion within the cerebellum and age at tumor resection are both predictors of long-term behavioral outcomes in pediatric cerebellar patients.

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