Objective To investigate the characteristics of amygdala neural circuitry in comorbidity of late-life depression (LLD) and cognitive impairment. Methods Twenty-four LLD,eighteen amnestic mild cognitive impairments (aMCI),thirteen aMCI with depression (dMCI) and thirty cognitive normal (CN) subjects completed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Main effects of depression and MCI and their interactions on the intrinsic amygdala functional connectivity network ( AFCN) connectivity were examined. Behavioral significance of AFCN that voxel-wised amygdala connectivity correlating with de-pression severity and memory scores were also tested after controlling the effects of covariates,including age, gender,education, gray matter atrophy, and group. Results The immediate memory and delayed memory function in the aMCI group (-0. 75 ± 0. 77 and -1. 13 ± 0. 56) and the dMCI group (-1. 07 ± 0. 79 and-1. 00±0. 52) were significantly lower than those of the CN group (0. 46±0. 73 and 0. 60±0. 61),and the difference was statistically significant (P<0. 01). Depression and anxiety in the LLD group (1. 00±0. 53 and 0. 93±0. 98) and the dMCI group (0. 86±0. 80 and 0. 78±0. 82) were significantly higher than those of the CN group (-0. 92±0. 25 and -0. 74±0. 22),and the difference was statistically significant (P<0. 01). Brain network analysis showed that separated neural circuits were implicated in the depression and cognitive im-pairment. Importantly,interactive effects of depression and MCI on the AFCN were also identified,especially in the bilateral somatomotor area,inferior parietal cortex/precuneus,posterior cingulate cortex,right medial prefrontal cortex/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Behavioral significance of AFCN also re-vealed the distinctive neural circuits involved in the depression severity and memory deficits,respectively. Conjunction analysis further identified the overlapped neural circuits associated with depression and memory deficits were primarily in the left DLPFC,insula,hippocampus,right inferior prefrontal cortex and dorsomedi-al prefrontal cortex. Conclusions Depression and cognitive impairment synergistically facilitate functional decoupling of AFCN and thus compromise the integrity of amygdala networks. Distinct depression-related or MCI-related neural constructs represent the characteristics of clinical phenotype of depression or MCI alone, while overlapped circuits probably reveal the neural basis of comorbidity of LLD and MCI.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the protective effect of electroacupuncture against acute lung injury (ALI) in septic rats and explore the mechanism. METHODS: Sixty male SD rats were randomly divided into cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)-induced sepsis group ( RESULTS: Compared with those in the sham operation group, the rats in ALI group showed obvious lung pathologies with significantly increased lung W/D ratio ( CONCLUSIONS Electroacupuncture can inhibit the release of inflammatory mediators and cell apoptosis via the JAK1/STAT3 pathway to reduce lung injuries in septic rats.
Acute Lung Injury/therapy* ; Animals ; Electroacupuncture ; Lung ; Male ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Sepsis/therapy* ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha