Long-term efficacy of Chinese medicine Bushen Capsule on cognition and brain activity in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment

Publication date: Available online 17 June 2019Source: Pharmacological ResearchAuthor(s): Junying Zhang, Caishui Yang, Dongfeng Wei, He Li, Elaine Lai-Han Leung, Qiangqiong Deng, Zhen Liu, Xing-Xing Fan, Zhanjun ZhangAbstractMild cognitive impairment (MCI), regarded as the prodromal stage before the clinical phase of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), has been considered for early intervention. Unfortunately, many trials in this stage with drugs with single-target turned out to be little or no effect. Multi-targeting in nature based on the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) offers another prospect for intervention. Together with advanced functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique for more sensitive and objective evaluation, we investigated the long-term therapeutic effects of a TCM compound on cognition and task-related neuronal activity. Sixty amnestic MCI (aMCI) participants from randomly divided into drug (30 with Bushen capsules (BSC)) and placebo (30 with placebo capsules) groups for this 2-years trial. Neuropsychological and N-back task-fMRI data were acquired at baseline and two follow-ups to assess, via linear mixed effect models, the changes of cognitive ability and brain activation over treatments. The drug group, compared with placebo group, exhibited improvement or stabilization in memory measures over time. Analyses of fMRI revealed that the placebo group exhibited higher activation magnitude and spatial extents at left superior parietal lobule; im...
Source: Pharmacological Research - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: research