Study on acupuncture improving sleep deprivation comorbid with cognitive dysfunction based on rs-fMRI: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Sleep deprivation often lead to changes in attention, memory, mood, alertness, and metabolism. Especially, it is often accompanied by cognitive impairment of the brain. Acupuncture is safe and effective for improving cognitive function, but its underlying mechanism is not fully understood. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging is an important means to study brain activity changes. However, the results are inconsistent and lack systematic evaluation and analysis.Methods: We will search 9 databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, EBSCOhost-Medline, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP Database and Wan-Fang Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and 2 clinical trials register platforms: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ClinicalTrials.gov () from inception to November 1, 2022. We will use the Review Manager 5.4 software provided by the Cochrane Collaborative Network for statistical analysis. We then assessed the quality and risk of the included studies and observed the outcome measures.Results: This study will analyze the effect of acupuncture on brain activity changes, improvement of sleep duration, and cognitive impairment.Conclusion: This meta-analysis aims to investigate the efficacy of acupuncture on brain activity changes in sleep deprivation comorbid with cognitive dysfunction, so as to provide effective evidence for clarifying its pathogenesis.