The Clinical Practice for Hippocampal Neurogenesis by Chronobiological Therapy

Abstract

The hippocampal neurogenesis in rats has been studied. In addition, when enough activities are provided in daytime, it is suggested that the memory consolidation during sleep will be achieved by hippocampal neurogenesis. We introduce our clinical practice of the chronobiological therapy regarding six dementia cases. Our therapy is based on awakening-sleep rhythm. We performed the medication to promote the changes from sleep to awakening in morning and to stabilize non-REM sleep at night. We also treated the autonomic nervous disorders so that the internal organs became active with Japanese Kampo Medicines, which were integrated with Western medicines. We set our occupational therapy in the daytime. The clinical evaluation was performed by psychological examinations and voxel-based specific regional analysis system for Alzheimer’s disease (VSRAD) of MRI. As for Z-score showing the hippocampal atrophy in VSRAD we accomplished the improvement of 0.55 points from 0.03 about six dementia cases by the chronobiological therapy. These improvements were accompanied by the better changes of the cognitive functions. We speculate that the hippocampal neurogenesis may be derived by reconstructing awakening-sleep rhythm.