China’s population has rapidly aged over the recent decades of social and economic development as neurodegenerative disorders have proliferated, especially Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias (ADRD). AD’s incidence rate, morbidity, and mortality have steadily increased to make it presently the fifth leading cause of death among urban and rural residents in China and magnify the resulting financial burdens on individuals, families and society. The ‘Healthy China Action’ plan of 2019–2030 promotes the transition from disease treatment to health maintenance for this expanding population with ADRD. This report describes related epidemiological trends, evaluates the economic burden of the disease, outlines current clinical diagnosis and treatment status and delineates existing available public health resources. More specifically, it examines the public health impact of ADRD, including prevalence, mortality, costs, usage of care, and the overall effect on caregivers and society. In addition, this special report presents technical guidance and supports for the prevention and treatment of AD, provides expertise to guide relevant governmental healthcare policy development and suggests an information platform for international exchange and cooperation.

Background: Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a specific learning disorder concerning reading acquisition that may has a lifelong negative impact on individuals. A reliable estimate of the prevalence of DD serves as the basis for diagnosis, intervention, and evidence-based health resource allocation and policy-making. Hence, the present meta-analysis aims to generate a reliable prevalence estimate of DD worldwide in primary school children and explore the potential variables related to that prevalence. Methods: Studies from the 1950s to June 2021 were collated using a combination of search terms related to DD and prevalence. Study quality was assessed using the STROBE guidelines according to the study design, with study heterogeneity assessed using the I² statistic, and random-effects meta-analyses were conducted. Variations in the prevalence of DD in different subgroups were assessed via subgroup meta-analysis and meta-regression. Results: The pooled prevalence of DD was 7.10% (95% CI: 6.27–7.97%). The prevalence in boys was significantly higher than that in girls (boys: 9.22%, 95%CI, 8.07–10.44%; girls: 4.66%, 95% CI, 3.84–5.54%; p < 0.001), but no significant difference was found in the prevalence across different writing systems (alphabetic scripts: 7.26%, 95%CI, 5.94–8.71%; logographic scripts: 6.97%, 95%CI, 5.86–8.16%; p > 0.05) or across different orthographic depths (shallow: 7.13%, 95% CI, 5.23–9.30%; deep: 7.55%, 95% CI, 4.66–11.04%; p > 0.05). It is worth noting that most articles had small sample sizes with diverse operational definitions, making comparisons challenging. Conclusions: This study provides an estimation of worldwide DD prevalence in primary school children. The prevalence was higher in boys than in girls but was not significantly different across different writing systems.

Neuroimaging studies have documented that ageing can disrupt certain higher cognitive systems such as the default mode network (DMN), the salience network (SN) and the central executive network (CEN). The effect of cognitive training on higher cognitive systems remains unclear. This study used a one-year longitudinal design to explore the cognitive training effect on three higher cognitive networks in healthy older adults. The community-living healthy older adults were divided into two groups: the multi-domain cognitive training group (24 sessions of cognitive training over a three-month period) and the wait-list control group. All subjects underwent cognitive measurements and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning at baseline and at one year after the training ended. We examined training-related changes in functional connectivity (FC) within and between three networks. Compared with the baseline, we observed maintained or increased FC within all three networks after training. The scans after training also showed maintained anti-correlation of FC between the DMN and CEN compared to the baseline. These findings demonstrated that cognitive training maintained or improved the functional integration within networks and the coupling between the DMN and CEN in older adults. Our findings suggested that multi-domain cognitive training can mitigate the ageing-related dysfunction of higher cognitive networks.