ERP Research On The Verbal And Spatial Working Memory Of Liver Qi Stagnation Of MCI

Purpose:The research,using Event Related Potentials(ERPs)technology,explored the sensitivity indicators of early decline in liver Qi stagnation MCI and compared the verbal and spatial working memory declines under different loads,in order to provide objective evidences to clinical study of liver Qi stagnation MCI's early diagnosis and pathogenesis and the effectiveness and mechanism of the“Smoothing the Liver Therapy"Methods:1.N-back experimental paradigm design and verification.A Chinese version digit span n-back experimental paradigm was established with numbers as stimulus to evaluate working memory in the verbal and spatial domains,respectively.32 healthy young participants between 19-28 years,of which 6 were excluded after analysis,were recruited to the ERP research to verify the effectiveness of the Chinese version digit span n-back experimental paradigm.2.ERP research on verbal and spatial working memory of liver Qi stagnation MCI.Montreal Cognitive Assessment(MoCA),Mini-Mental State Exam(MMSE),Activity of Daily Living Scale(ADL),Global Deterioration Scale(GDS)and Liver Qi Stagnation Rating Scale were used to screen 14 participants of liver Qi stagnation MCI.Normal middle-aged and elderly control group(normal cognitive adults group—NC group)was selected according to age,gender and years of education.The ERP technology was used to analyze the three groups'P2 and P300 components of verbal and spatial working memory under different load tasks,and to compare their differences in cognitive function.Results:1.The young group's behavioral data results indicated that accuracy and time reaction under different task loads have obvious main effects,while no task type main effects.ERP results showd that obvious P2 in anterior scalp and N1,P1 and P300 in posterior scalp were induced.In addition,P2 and P300 have obvious electric pole main effects.2.The three groups' ACC and RTs reduced significantly with the increase of task load(P<0.05).The MCI group showed the lowest ACC and RTs,while the young group showd the highest both in verbal and spatial working memory(P<0.05).3.Under the three task loads,obvious P2 in anterior scalp and obvious P300 in posterior scalp were induced in all the three groups,with the maximum P2 amplitude at the FZ point and the maximum P300 amplitude at the PZ point.Under 0-back task load,the three groups' average P300 amplitude of verbal working memory was greater than that of spatial working memory(P<0.05).Under 1-back task load,the three groups average P300 amplitude differences indicated no statistical significance(P>0.05).4.Obvious P300 in anterior scalp was also induced in the MCI group and NC group.Under 0-back task load,the MCI group and NC group showed obvious average P300 amplitude increase in anterior scalp(P<0.05).Under 1-back task load,the MCI group showd obvious average P300 amplitude increase in anterior scalp(P<0.05).5.Under different task loads,the MCI group showed shorter P300 latency than the NC group and young group(P<0.05).As for verbal and spatial working memory,the MCI group and NC group showed shorter P2 latency than the young group(P<0.05),the MCI group showed shorter P300 latency than the NC group and young group(P<0.05).Conclusion:1.The Chinese version digital span n-back experimental paradigm can be used to measure the refreshing function of verbal and spatial working memory,and the two task types in the experimental design have no load difference.Therefore,the Chinese version is compatible with the research.2.The NC group and liver Qi stagnation MCI group showed higher attention towards verbal and spatial task information than the young group.Furthermore,there may be some compensatory mechanism in information updating process.3.The liver Qi stagnation MCI group showed decline in general cognitive functions,of which the most obvious was the change of behavioral responses.P300 can be used as a sensitivity indicator of early decline in liver Qi stagnation MCI,which provides a new perspective to study the mechanism through which long-term negative emotions impact on cognitive processing of Qi stagnation MCI.4.The declines of verbal and spatial working memory were related with the reduce of memory ability in liver Qi stagnation MCI,which further verified the hypothesis"Long-term bad emotion regulation was one of the important factors in accelerating the aging process to verbal and spatial working memory" and added new conotation to cognitive function decline caused by brain aging.