| Depression is a mood disorder that causes a disturbance in an individual's emotions andfeelings; if someone has depression, or a depressive illness, they experience a pervasive andsustained change in mood which leaves them feeling persistently sad, worthless and helpless. Depression is now the most common psychological problem in the whole mental healthfield. The incidence has risen year on year over many years. Though people have put manyefforts on the study of depression, but several hundred years have passed, we still can't makeit fully clarified in the field of modern medicines. Also, modern medicines have a long way togo to conquer depression. But, as a matter of fact, acupuncture has already been used as a therapy to treatdepression for thousands of years in China. It has credible effectiveness and no significantside effects. So how to develop its advantages, clarify its mechanism, and improve its positiveeffectiveness, has become an urgent and valuable researching topic.Purpose: To study the anti-depression mechanisms of electro-acupuncture. By theintervention of electro-acupuncture on the depression model rats, this experiment observedthe influences of electro-acupuncture on the ethology changes, morphological structurechanges in some brain regions, and hippocampus changes in molecular level.Methods:â‘ Depression model were established by giving chronic stress to SD rats;â‘¡ Morphological structure changes were observed by Open-field test and Sugar intake test;â‘¢ Brain morphological changes, signal intensity changes in specified brain regions and neuron morphological structure changes of hippocampus were observed by Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electron microscoping and TdT-mediated biotinylated-dUTP nick end labeling method(TUNEL) in electro-acupuncture intervened depression model rats;â‘£ nNOS mRNA and BDNF expression changes of hippocampus in electro-acupuncture intervened depression model rats were observed by RT-PCR and Western blot.Results:â‘ After 3 weeks of chronic stress, the weight increasing rates of model group and electro-acupuncture group are significantly slow compared to that of control group. But when compared to each other, there is no significant differences. In sugar intake test, the sugar intake amount of model group dropped. This indicates that just like depression patients have anhedonia, model rats show hyposensitivity to reward stimulation (1% sucrose water-delicious food). While the sugar intake amount of acupuncture group is close to the intake level of control group, and shows significantly differences when compared with that of model group. These results prove that by givingelectro-acupuncture, anhedonia of depression model rats can be alleviated. In open-field test, horizontal motion and vertical motion of model rats both declined. This indicates that the interesting of exploration of model rats declined. While the open-field test's results of electro-acupuncture group show a reduction of horizontal motion and vertical motion, too, but without significant differences to model group. This result is inconsistent with other reports.â‘¡ MRI results show that compared with control group, the across section area in aqueduct of midbrain of model group and electro-acupuncture group increases. Statistical results show significant differences between these 3 groups; T2 value analysis shows that T2 value of electro-acupuncture group and control group is close in hippocampus, while T2 value in hippocampus of model group is higher than the other 2 groups. In particular, T2 value in hippocampus shows significant differences between electro-acupuncture group and model group, but in other brain regions, such as caudate-putamen nucleus, amygdaloid nucleus and cortex, T2 value shows no significant differences between these 3 groups; Data analysis results of Images captured by MR Diffusion-Weighted Imaging(MRDWI) show that apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of model group and electro-acupuncture group in hippocampus, temporal lobe and auditory cortex is lower than that of... |
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