Therapeutic effect of auricular concha eletro-acupuncture on CUMS-induced depression in rats and its mechanism
Objective To investigate the therapeutic effect and mechanism of auricular concha eletro-acupuncture on chronic unpredictability mild stimulation(CUMS)-induced depression in rats and to explore its mechanism based on the pro-tein kinase A(PKA)/CREB signaling pathway.Methods Twenty-four adult male SD rats were fed for 7 days and ran-domly divided into the control group,model group,fluoxetine group and auricular concha eletro-acupuncture group,with 6 rats in each group.Rats in the control group were given 2 mL of normal saline daily without special intervention for 35 con-secutive days.Rats in the model group,fluoxetine group and auricular concha eletro-acupuncture group were exposed to CUMS for 35 days.Rats in the fluoxetine group were given fluoxetine hydrochloride intragastically once a day for 21 days before CUMS exposure from day 14.On the 14th day of the experiment,isoflurane anesthesia before CUMS exposure was started in the auricular concha eletro-acupuncture group,and the electroacupuncture was used to stimulate the Shenmen point of the bilateral auricular concha with a stimulation intensity of 2 mA and a frequency of 20 Hz,once a day,for 30 min each time and for 21 consecutive days.Before the experiment and on the 14th and 35th days of the experiment,the body mass of the rats was measured by a bench scale.The spontaneous activity and exploration behavior of rats were observed by open field experiment.Anhedonia behavior in rats was evaluated by sugar water preference test.On the 35th day of the experiment,after the completion of other tests,the rats were decapitated and their brain tissues were quickly removed to iso-late the hippocampus.The relative expression of PKA/CREB signaling pathway proteins in the hippocampus was detected by Western blotting.Results Compared with the control group in the same period,the body mass,spontaneous activity behavior,exploration behavior and sugar-water preference index of the model group significantly decreased on the the 14th and 35th days(all P＜0.05).Compared with the model group in the same period,the body mass,spontaneous activity behavior,exploration behavior and sugar-water preference index of the fluoxetine group and auricular concha eletro-acu-puncture group significantly increased on the 35th day(all P＜0.05).The relative expression levels of PKA-α and p-CREB protein in hippocampus of the model group were significantly lower than those of the control group(all P＜0.05).The rela-tive expression levels of PKA-α and p-CREB protein in hippocampus of the fluoxetine group and auricular concha eletro-acu-puncture group were significantly higher than those of the model group(all P＜0.05).Conclusion Auricular concha elet-ro-acupuncture can effectively relieve depression-like behavior in CUMS-induced depression rats,and its effect is similar to that of fluoxetine;the mechanism may be related to the activation of PKA/CREB signaling pathway in hippocampus.
国家科技期刊平台
NSTL
万方数据
维普
