Herbal medicine for mild cognitive impairment: Neuroimaging perspectives

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) represents a critical preclinical stage of dementia, with 10%-15% annual progression to Alzheimer’s disease. Although conventional pharmacotherapies provide limited symptomatic relief, herbal medicines have attracted increasing interest because of their pleiotropic mechanisms, which may target neuroinflammation, cholinergic dysfunction, cerebral hypometabolism, and gut microbiota imbalance. Contemporary neuroimaging evidence, derived from preclinical animal models