Annual meeting of the Japan Traditional Chinese Medicine Association: Quantifying and objectifying traditional Chinese medicine

Five researchers reported on their studies to quantify and objectify traditional medicine at the symposium 'Verification of Traditional Chinese Medicine' during the 2016 annual meeting of the Japan Traditional Chinese Medicine Association.Takao Namiki reported on a methodology to quantify tongue diagnosis.Tetsuhiro Yoshino presented work on predictive prescribing two Kampo formulas for dysmenorrhea,Tangkuei and Peony Powder (Danggui Shaoyao San) and Cinnamon Twig and Poria Pill (Guizhi Fuling Wan).Koh Iwasaki presented work on validation of a questionnaire for assessing qi stagnation and Mitsuyuki Takamura reported on application of the questionnaire to evaluate the efficacy of Pinellia and Magnolia Bark Decoction (Banxia Houpo Tang).Kaoru Sakatani presented research on near-infrared spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool for wei bing,a concept of pre-symptomatic state in traditional Chinese medicine.

Effects of aging on working memory performance and prefrontal cortex activity: A time-resolved spectroscopy study

Objective:This study aimed to employ time‐resolved spectroscopy(TRS)to explore age‐related differences in prefrontal cortex(PFC)activity while subjects performed a working memory task.Methods:We employed TRS to measure PFC activity in ten healthy younger and ten healthy older subjects while they performed a working memory(WM)task.All subjects performed the Sternberg test(ST)in which the memory‐set size varied between one and six digits.Using TRS,we recorded changes in cerebral blood oxygenation as a measure of changes in PFC activity during the task.In order to identify left/right asymmetry of PFC activity during the working memory task,we calculated the laterality score,i.e.,Δoxy‐Hb(rightΔoxy‐Hb—leftΔoxy‐Hb);positive values indicate greater activity in the right PFC,while negative values indicate greater activity in the left PFC.Results:During the ST,statistical analyses showed no significant differences between the younger and older groups in accuracy for low memory‐load and high memory‐load.In high memory‐load tasks,however,older subjects were slower than younger subjects(P<0.05).We found that the younger group showed right lateral responses with a stronger right than left activation in the frontal pole,whereas the older group showed bilateral responses(P<0.05).Conclusions:The present results are consistent with the hemispheric asymmetry reduction in older adults(HAROLD)model;working memory tasks cause asymmetrical PFC activation in younger adults,while older adults tend to show reduced hemispheric lateralization.