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Background: Prior research has shown that acupuncture, a traditional Chinese medical therapy, may have a certain therapeutic effect in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Furthermore, some studies have explored the effects of acupuncture on the brain functional networks of MCI patients to investigate the mechanism of action. Different studies have analysed the brain regions involved in acupuncture-induced changes, but (to our knowledge) these have not been summarized by a systematic review. Methods: We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, SinoMed, CNKI and other databases in Chinese and English to identify neuroimaging studies of acupuncture interventions in MCI patients. After two stages of literature screening, bias risk assessment and data extraction, brain regions with significant differences were input into GingerALE software. Based on the activation likelihood estimation algorithm, coordinate-based meta-analyses were conducted. Results: The changes in functional activation of 95 different areas in 8 trials, including 212 MCI patients, were analysed. The three most commonly used traditional acupuncture point locations in acupuncture interventions for MCI were KI3 (Taixi), LR3 (Taichong) and LI4 (Hegu). The results of the ALE data analysis showed that, after acupuncture intervention, the degree of activation in the anterior cingulate, inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus and cerebellar tonsil of MCI patients increased significantly. Conclusions: Acupuncture intervention for MCI appears to change the plasticity of brain function and improve the cognitive function of patients. Due to the small number and low quality of the included studies, the conclusion of this meta-analysis should be treated with caution. Registration: PROSPERO reference CRD42022301056 (http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The corticocortical vestibular network (CVN) plays an important role in maintaining balance and stability. In order to clarify the specific relationship between the CVN and the balance ability of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), we recruited 30 MCI patients in the community. According to age and sex, they were 1:1 matched to 30 older adults with normal cognitive function. We evaluated balance ability and performed MRI scanning in the two groups of participants. We analyzed functional connectivity within the CVN based on the region of interest. Then, we performed a Pearson correlation analysis between the functional connection and the Berg Balance Scale scores. The research results show that compared with the control group, there were three pairs of functional connections (hMST_R–Premotor_R, PFcm_R–SMA_L, and hMST_L–VIP_R) that were significantly decreased in the CVNs of the MCI group (p < 0.05). Further correlation analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between hMST_R–Premotor_R functional connectivity and BBS score (r = 0.364, p = 0.004). The decline in balance ability and increase in fall risk in patients with MCI may be closely related to the change in the internal connection mode of the corticocortical vestibular network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The increased risk for the elderly with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to progress to Alzheimer''s disease makes it an appropriate condition for investigation. While the use of acupuncture as a complementary therapeutic method for treating MCI is popular in certain parts of the world, the underlying mechanism is still elusive. We sought to investigate the acupuncture effects on the functional connectivity throughout the entire brain in MCI patients compared to healthy controls (HC). The functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment was performed with two different paradigms, namely, deep acupuncture (DA) and superficial acupuncture (SA), at acupoint KI3. We first identified regions showing abnormal functional connectivity in the MCI group compared to HC during the resting state and subsequently tested whether these regions could be modulated by acupuncture. Then, we made the comparison of MCI vs. HC to test whether there were any specific modulatory patterns in the poststimulus resting brain between the two groups. Finally, we made the comparisons of DA vs. SA in each group to test the effect of acupuncture with different needling depths. We found the temporal regions (hippocampus, thalamus, fusiform gyrus) showing abnormal functional connectivity during the resting state. These regions are implicated in memory encoding and retrieving. Furthermore, we found significant changes in functional connectivity related with the abnormal regions in MCI patients following acupuncture. Compared to HC, the correlations related with the temporal regions were enhanced in the poststimulus resting brain in MCI patients. Compared to SA, significantly increased correlations related with the temporal regions were found for the DA condition. The enhanced correlations in the memory-related brain regions following acupuncture may be related to the purported therapeutically beneficial effects of acupuncture for the treatment of MCI. The heterogeneous modulatory patterns between DA and SA may suggest that deep muscle insertion of acupuncture is necessary to achieve the appreciable clinical effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]