title: Changes in cerebral glucose metabolism after 3 weeks of noninvasive electrical stimulation of mild cognitive impairment patients.
abstract: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a syndrome that disrupts an individual's cognitive function but preserves activities of daily living. MCI is thought to be a prodromal stage of dementia, which disrupts patients' daily lives and causes severe cognitive dysfunction. Although extensive clinical trials have attempted to slow or stop the MCI to dementia conversion, the results have been largely unsuccessful. The purpose of this study was to determine whether noninvasive electrical stimulation of MCI changes glucose metabolism.
  
  
  
  Sixteen MCI patients participated in this study. We used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) (2 mA/day, three times per week for 3 weeks) and assessed positron emission tomography (18 F-FDG) before and after 3 weeks of stimulation.
  
  
  
  We showed that regular and relatively long-term use of tDCS significantly increased regional cerebral metabolism in MCI patients. Furthermore, subjective memory satisfaction and improvement of the memory strategies of participants were observed only in the real tDCS group after 3 weeks of stimulation.
  
  
  
  Our findings suggest that neurophysiological intervention of MCI could improve glucose metabolism and transient memory function in MCI patients.
authors.affiliation: Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA.
authors.forename: Kyongsik
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yun
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, #56 Dongsu-ro, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, 21431, South Korea. siuy@catholic.ac.kr.
authors.forename: In-Uk
authors.initials: IU
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Incheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, #56 Dongsu-ro, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, 21431, South Korea. nm@catholic.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Yong-An
authors.initials: YA
authors.lastname: Chung
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000628:therapy*; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 / Q000378:metabolism; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D065908:Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005947:Glucose
keywords: Mild cognitive impairment; Positron emission tomography; Transcranial direct current stimulation