Abstract Purpose To explore the relationship of regional cerebral blood flow and metabolism with cognitive function and past exposure to chemical treatment for breast cancer. Patients and strategies Subjects treated for breast cancer with adjuvant chemo remotely (5-10 years formerly) were studied with neuropsychologic testing and positron emission tomography ( PET ), and were compared with control subjects who had not received chemo. [O-15] water PET scans was bought during performance of control and memory-related jobs to judge cognition-related cerebral blood flow, and [F-18] fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET scans were purchased to judge resting cerebral metabolism. PET scans were investigated by statistics parametric mapping and area of interest techniques of research. Results During performance of a short term recall task, modulation of cerebral blood flow in specific regions of frontal cortex and cerebellum was significantly changed in chemotherapy-treated subjects. Cerebral activation in chemotherapy-treated subjects differed most importantly from untreated subjects in inferior frontal gyrus, and resting metabolism in this area related with performance on a short term memory task formerly revealed to be especially diminished in chemotherapy-treated subjects. In inspecting drug-class particular effects, metabolic rate of the fundamental ganglia was noticeably reduced in tamoxifen chemotherapy-treated patients compared to chemotherapy-only breast cancer subjects or with subjects who hadn’t received chemical treatment, while chemical treatment alone was not connected with reduced fundamental ganglia activity relative to untreated subjects. Conclusion Precise modifications in activity of frontal cortex, cerebellum, and fundamental ganglia in breast cancer survivors were documented by functional neuroimaging 5-10 years after completion of chemical treatment.