Study on effects of 40 Hz light flicker stimulation on spatial working memory in rats and its neural mechanism

• Published in: Sheng wu yi xue gong cheng xue za zhi Vol. 40; no. 6; pp. 1142 - 1151
• Main Authors: Wang, Longlong, Li, Shuangyan, Li, Runze, Xu, Guizhi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Chinese
• Published: China Sichuan Society for Biomedical Engineering 25.12.2023
• Subjects: Adult; Alzheimer's disease; Animal models; Animals; Cognitive ability; Coupling; Entrainment; Flicker; Hippocampus; Humans; Memory; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; Mental disorders; Neural networks; Neurodegenerative Diseases; Neuromodulation; Oscillations; Pharmacology; Prefrontal Cortex; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Short term memory; Spatial memory; Statistical analysis; Stimulation; Neural oscillations; Spatial working memory; Phase-amplitude coupling; Hippocampus-medial prefrontal cortex; 40 Hz light flicker stimulation
• ISSN: 1001-5515
• DOI: 10.7507/1001-5515.202212013

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by cognitive impairment, with the predominant clinical diagnosis of spatial working memory (SWM) deficiency, which seriously affects the physical and mental health of patients. However, the current pharmacological therapies have unsatisfactory cure rates and other problems, so non-pharmacological physical therapies have gradually received widespread attention. Recently, a novel treatment using 40 Hz light flicker stimulation (40 Hz-LFS) to rescue the cognitive function of model animals with AD has made initial progress, but the neurophysiological mechanism remains unclear. Therefore, this paper will explore the potential neural mechanisms underlying the modulation of SWM by 40 Hz-LFS based on cross-frequency coupling (CFC). Ten adult Wistar rats were first subjected to acute LFS at frequencies of 20, 40, and 60 Hz. The entrainment effect of LFS with different frequency on neural oscillations in the hippocampus (HPC) and medial prefrontal co