Study of event-related potentials to identify differences in verbal working memory in patients with mild cognitive impairment with different Traditional Chinese Medicine syndromes.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the differences in cognitive processing between patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) of different Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) syndrome types to provide evidence supporting the TCM typing of MCI.

METHODS

Participants were screened using a battery of scales for spleen and kidney deficiency (SKD) / liver Qi stagnation (LQS)-type MCI or those without syndrome or normal control (NC). Following sex, age, and educational matching, behavioral and electroencephalographic data were recorded using the verbal N-back experimental paradigm. The data were then analyzed and compared with respect to the reaction time and correctness of the participants in each group, as well as the amplitude and latency of the event-related potential (ERP) components of P2, N2, and P3.

RESULTS

There were no statistically significant differences in the accuracy or reaction times of the behavioral data of the groups. Regarding ERP data, the SKD group had a shorter P2 latency than the LQS and NC groups, while the latter two groups did not differ statistically. The SKD group had a shorter N2 latency than the NC group, while the SKD group did not differ from the LQS group. The SKD and LQS groups had a shorter P3 latency than the NC group.

CONCLUSION

Our study offers objective evidence of the distinction between the types of TCM syndrome. Different types of TCM syndromes produce different disease mechanisms, resulting in brain damage with different presentations of cognitive impairment and cognitive processing characteristics.