Electroacupuncture Ameliorates Acute Myocardial Ischemia: A Potential Role of the Locus Coeruleus

Abstract

The locus coeruleus (LC) is closely linked with cardiovascular disease. However, whether it mediates the alleviating effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on acute myocardial ischemia (AMI) remains unclear. A rat model of myocardial ischemia was established through occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery. Multichannel in vivo recording and other techniques were used to assess neurons in the LC, norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA) levels in central and myocardial tissue, serum levels of inflammatory factors, and cardiac function. After induction of AMI, LC neuron activity increased and the central NE concentrations increased, while those of DA decreased. Moreover, the serum levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) increased, whereas those of interleukin-10 (IL-10) decreased. However, these effects were reversed by EA. Additionally, LC lesioning affected NE and DA levels in myocardial tissue and weakened the antimyocardial ischemic effect of EA. Collectively, our results indicated that LC is closely related to AMI and plays an important role in the antimyocardial ischemic effect of EA. This mechanism may be related to inhibition of LC neuron activity by EA, which inhibits the release of large amounts of hs-CRP and promotes that of IL-10 in the serum. Besides, after LC lesioning, EA may improve cardiac function by inhibiting the release of large amounts of NE and promoting the release of DA in myocardial tissue.

Full-length transcriptome analysis reveals the mechanism of acupuncture at PC6 improves cardiac function in myocardial ischemia model

“…The analysis of DEGs, which co-regulated in two groups, indicated that these genes were mainly enriched in Inflammatory response, Regulation of actin cytoskeleton, Type I interferon-mediated signaling pathway, and Transcription-dependent tethering of RNA polymerase II gene DNA at the nuclear periphery. The effects of acupuncture on some of these signaling pathways have been reported in previous research [36,42], suggesting that these signaling may be the key targets of acupuncture. Since most of these co-regulated genes are involved in the inflammatory response, and the inflammatory response plays a crucial role in scar formation and myocardial remodeling in MI [6] so that we verified the inflammatory reaction in MI and the regulatory effect of acupuncture on it from the morphological, gene and protein levels.…”

Electroacupuncture Ameliorates Acute Myocardial Ischemic Injury and Long QT Interval in Mice through the α1A-Adrenergic Receptor: Electrophysiological, Morphological, and Molecular Evidence

“…Moreover, autonomic nerve activity modulation as a treatment for arrhythmias has been well established in some diseases, such as long QT syndrome [ 25 ]. Our previous studies [ 26 – 28 ] confirmed that EA played a protective role in AMI by regulating autonomic nerve activity. Although it is suggested that acupuncture's protective effect might be due to increased expression of K + channel protein in mice with myocardial infarction [ 29 ], the role of EA in improving AMI by regulating α 1A -AR and potassium channels as well as shortening the long QT interval is still ambiguous.…”

“…According to a few previous studies, EA can inhibit sympathetic activity and reduce MI injury [ 27 , 28 , 30 ]. It was also discovered that EA activity at the HT7-HT5 point can alleviate MI injury in rats by reducing ST-segment amplitude, serum myocardial enzyme levels, myocardial NE content, and MI area, thus suggesting that EA on hand shaoyin heart meridian points can alleviate MI injury by inhibiting sympathetic nerve excitability [ 26 ]. These findings were consistent with our study results.…”

“…Our previous study showed that EA can alleviate MI injury in rats by inhibiting sympathetic hyperexcitation [ 26 , 27 ]. In this study, EA displayed a protective effect on myocardial tissue morphology and cardiac function, as well as decreasing the long QT interval in MI mice.…”

“…The AMI model was established by ligating LAD as described in our previous studies [ 26 – 28 ], whereas LAD was not ligated in the sham group. HT7-HT5 (WT, α 1A –/– ) and LU9-LU8 were treated with EA (Shenmen HT7, Tongli HT5, Taiyuan LU9, and Jingqu LU8) the first day after modeling, and the needle was retained for 30 min once a day for three consecutive days.…”