Cognitive impairment on patients with kidney deficiency syndrome: A resting-state fMRI study

Introduction: Introduction: According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) theory, kidney deficiency syndrome accompanies cognitive impairment, especially for memory and attention. The executive control network (ECN) plays an important role in the cognitive processing for memory and attention. Our aim was to investigate the change of ECN in patients with kidney deficiency syndrome. Methods: Twelve patients and 12 healthy subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) examination and neuropsychological tests. Results: Compared with healthy subjects, patients with kidney deficiency syndrome revealed significantly decreased functional connectivity (FC) within ECN. Furthermore, the FC value was positively correlated with the 4-actual number of responses (4-ANR), and this FC value was negatively correlated with the number of wrong responses. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that patients with kidney deficiency syndrome are associated with abnormal FC of ECN, and provides new evidence on neuroimaging to support the notion that the kidney deficiency syndrome could lead to cognitive impairment.