Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation may promote the reversion of mild cognitive impairment to normal cognition

Guo, Zhiwei; Jiang, Yi; He, Jiayuan; JIANG, NING

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1544728

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry

Sec. Neurostimulation

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1544728

This article is part of the Research Topic Underlying Neural Mechanisms of Non-invasion Brain Stimulation in the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: Evidence from Neuroimaging Studies Volume II View all 4 articles

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation may promote the reversion of mild cognitive impairment to normal cognition

Provisionally accepted

National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics, West China Biomedical Big Data Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China., Chengdu, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the potential effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on the reversion of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to normal cognitive function and to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.The study enrolled 25 MCI participants, who underwent a 10-day of rTMS treatment and an 18-month follow-up, along with 15 healthy subjects. Participants with MCI were categorized into MCI reverters (MCI-R) and MCI maintainers (MCI-M). We assessed differences in baseline cognitive performance, functional connectivity, and changes of cognitive functions after rTMS between MCI-R and MCI-M to identify possible predictors of reversion of MCI and explore the neural modulation mechanisms.: MCI-M exhibited more severe cognitive impairments across more domains, particularly in language function (p < 0.05). Functional connectivity was more severely damaged in MCI-M participants, notably within the default mode network (DMN), executive control network (ECN), and frontal-parietal network (FPN). After rTMS therapy, MCI-R participants demonstrated more significantly improved immediate and delayed recall memory scores (p < 0.05). These memory function changes and baseline functional connectivity of DMN, ECN, and FPN were predictive of the reversion of MCI. Conclusions: The efficacy of rTMS in memory function may promote the reversion of MCI to normal cognition, with the functional connectivity of DMN, ECN, and FPN playing a crucial important role. The severity of cognitive impairment and functional connectivity damage correlated with the likelihood of the reversion of MCI to normal cognition, underscoring the importance of early rTMS intervention for dementia prevention.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, functional connectivity, cognitive reversion, Mild cognition impairment, Resting State Network (RSN)

Received: 13 Dec 2024; Accepted: 10 Mar 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Guo, Jiang, He and JIANG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: NING JIANG, National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics, West China Biomedical Big Data Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China., Chengdu, China

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