Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on whole brain network topologic attributes in mild cognitive impairment
Objective To investigate the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation(tDCS)on the topologic attributes of brain functional network in the patients with mild cognitive impairment(MCI).Meth-ods Thirty-three included patients with MCI were randomly divided into the real stimulation group(18 ca-ses)and pseudo-stimulation group(15 cases).All patients received the tDCS treatment for consecutive 10 d.The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC)was stimulated by the anode,while the right orbital socket DLPFC was stimulated by the cathode.The neuropsychological scale assessment and resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-fMRI)image collection were performed before and after treatment.The GRETNA software was used to preprocess the rs-fMRI images and analyze the graph theory.The Pearson correlation analysis was used to calculate the correlation between behavioral indicators and network attribute indicators of significant difference between the two groups.Results There were statistically significant differ-ences in the node attributes(intermediate number centrality,degree centrality and local efficiency of nodes)before and after treatment,and between the two groups after treatment(P<0.05).Compared with before treatment,the scores of MMSE,MoCA,AVLT-N7 and BNT after treatment in the real stimulation group were significantly increased[(25.89±2.16)points,(21.16±2.77)points,(4.95±1.81)points,(19.47±3.13)points].Conclusion tDCS could effectively regulate the local topological attributes of nodes in the cognitive-related brain region of MCI and improve the cognitive function.
mild cognitive impairmentgraph theoretic analysistranscranial direct current stimulationmagnetic resonance imagingbrain network