Author/Authors :
Cui, Shaoyang Department of Rehabilitation - Shenzhen Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, China , Xu, Mingzhu Stroke Biological Recovery Laboratory - Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital - Harvard Medical School, USA , Huang, Jianting Stroke Biological Recovery Laboratory - Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital - Harvard Medical School, USA
Abstract :
Acupuncture has been widely used in China to treat neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, its
mechanism remains unclear. In the present study, eighty healthy Wistar rats were divided into a normal control group (n = 15)
and premodel group (n = 65). Forty-five rats that met the criteria for the AD model were then randomly divided into the model
group (MG), the nonacupoint group (NG), and the acupoint group (AG). All rats received positron emission tomography (PET)
scanning, and the images were analyzed with Statistical Parametric Mapping 8.0. MG exhibited hypometabolism in the olfactory
bulb, insular cortex, orbital cortex, prelimbic cortex, striatum, parietal association cortex, visual cortex, cingulate gyrus, and
retrosplenial cortex. AG exhibited prominent and extensive hypermetabolism in the thalamus, hypothalamus, bed nucleus
of the stria terminalis, cerebral peduncle, midbrain tegmentum, and pontine tegmentum compared to NG. These results
demonstrated that acupuncturing at GV24 and bilateral GB13 acupoints may improve the learning and memory abilities of
the AD rats, probably via altering cerebral glucose metabolism (CGM) in the hypothalamus, thalamus, and brain stem.
The observed effects of acupuncture may be caused by regulating the distribution of certain kinds of neurotransmitters and
enhancing synaptic plasticity.
Keywords :
Cerebral Responses , Acupuncture at GV24 , Bilateral GB13 , Rat Models , Alzheimer's Disease
