Post-surgery Insights: Exploring Neurocognitive Enigma in Low-grade Glioma Involving the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus.

Background: In young patients, improving post-surgery quality of life is vital. A critical lacuna in glioma resections is the absence of tract-specific digital tests to safeguard cognitive functions.

Objective: This study aimed to assess cognitive impairment in patients with pre-frontal low-grade gliomas (LGG) involving the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF).

Material and methods: The current study documented cognitive impairment using the battery of tests temporarily licensed from The Many Brains Project (TMB) in patients who underwent surgery for pre-frontal LGG with radiological evidence of involvement of the SLF.

Results: Post-operative neuropsychological evaluations in patients with SLF lesions revealed significantly reduced cognitive performance compared to healthy participants. These deficits were evident in tests such as Simple Reaction Time, Visual Patterns, Digit Symbol Substitution, Digit Span, Attention tasks and Trail Making Tests.

Conclusion: Functional domains like attention, working memory and executive function may be affected in patients by both the tumour and neurosurgical intervention. Based on these results, we recommend using Reaction Time, Digit Symbol Substitution, Multiple Object Tracking and Trail Making Tests as practical cognitive evaluation tools, complementing traditional Intraoperative Neurophysiological techniques.