Arousing Effects of Electroacupuncture on the “Shuigou Point” in Rats with Disorder of Consciousness after Traumatic Brain Injury

Tan, Li; Wang, Ning; Gu, Zhilin; Zhu, Jie-bin; Liu, Chunyan; Xu, Zhenhua

doi:10.1155/2021/6611461

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 52 publications

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“…It is easy to develop into the second stage if not provided prompt and effective treatment, which causes a poor prognosis and low quality of life (QoL), bringing a huge economic burden to family and society. 4 Many studies 5 , 6 , 7 have proved that acupuncture was beneficial to TBI in brain function restoration and QoL improvement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acupuncture promotes nerve repair through the benign regulation of mTOR‐mediated neuronal autophagy in traumatic brain injury rats

et al. 2022

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Aims Recent investigations have already proved the neuroprotective efficacy of acupuncture in clinical practice in the treatment of neurological diseases, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI). Since growing evidence has suggested that neuronal autophagy was involved in multiple stages of TBI, this study aims to clarify the autophagy mediating mechanism underlying the neuroprotective effect of acupuncture in TBI rats. Methods Three experiments were carried out to detect changes in neuronal autophagy and identify the potential molecular mechanism underlying the neuroprotective effect of acupuncture for TBI treatment. Feeney's free‐falling epidural impingement method was used to establish the moderate TBI rat model; modified neurological severity scoring (mNSS) was used for neurological recovery evaluation. Nissl and HE staining were used to examine the histopathological changes. Immunofluorescence was used to detect the LC3‐positive cell rate. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) was used to investigate the morphology and quantity of autophagosomes. Western blotting was used to determine the protein expressions of LC3, p62, beclin1, mTOR, ULK1, p‐mTOR, and p‐ULK1. Quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) was used for gene expressions analysis of LC3 mRNA and p62 mRNA. Co‐immunoprecipitation (CO‐IP) method was used to identify the protein interaction of mTOR and ULK1. Results On Day 3 after TBI, acupuncture accelerated the removal of damaged cellular structures by promoting neuronal autophagy; on Day 7 and Day 14 after TBI, acupuncture inhibited neuronal autophagy, preventing excessive autophagy and thus alleviated nerve damage. In addition, the simultaneous treatment with 3‐MA or rapamycin at different stages after TBI attenuated the effect of acupuncture. Conclusion Acupuncture has a benign regulatory effect on neuronal autophagy in different stages of TBI, possibly through the mTOR/ULK1 pathway.

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