Brain areas involved in the acupuncture treatment of AD model rats: a PET study

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Xinsheng Lai³  Shanshan Qu¹  Huiling Xiao¹  Renyong Lin¹  Junqi Chen¹  Junjun Yang³  Shaoyang Cui²  Baoci Shan⁵  Chunzhi Tang³  Yong Huang¹  Yangjia Lu⁴ 

[1]School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China

[2]The TCM Hospital of Futian District of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China

[3]Clinical Medical College of Acupuncture, Moxibustion and Rehabilitation, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China

[4]Traditional Chinese Medicine Department of the Second Clinical School, Guangdong Medical College, Donguan, Guangdong Province, China

[5]Key Laboratory of Nuclear Analytical Techniques, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

关键词: AD;    Rat;    ST36;    Needling;    PET;   

Others  :  1220115
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-178

 received in 2013-04-05, accepted in 2014-04-17,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Acupuncture may effectively treat certain symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Although several studies have used functional brain imaging to investigate the mechanisms of acupuncture treatment on AD, these mechanisms are still poorly understood. We therefore further explored the mechanism by which needling at ST36 may have a therapeutic effect in a rat AD model.

Methods

A total of 80 healthy Wistar rats were divided into healthy control (n = 15) and pre-model (n = 65) groups. After inducing AD-like disease, a total of 45 AD model rats were randomly divided into three groups: the model group (n = 15), the sham-point group (n = 15), and the ST36 group (n = 15). The above three groups underwent PET scanning. PET images were processed with SPM2.

Results

The brain areas that were activated in the sham-point group relative to the model group were primarily centred on the bilateral limbic system, the right frontal lobe, and the striatum, whereas the activated areas in the ST36 group were primarily centred on the bilateral limbic system (pyriform cortex), the bilateral temporal lobe (olfactory cortex), the right amygdala and the right hippocampus. Compared with the sham-point group, the ST36 group showed greater activation in the bilateral amygdalae and the left temporal lobe.

Conclusion

We concluded that needling at a sham point or ST36 can increase blood perfusion and glycol metabolism in certain brain areas, and thus may have a positive influence on the cognition of AD patients.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Lu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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