Protective Effect Of Electroacupuncture Against Acute Ischemic Injury And The Possible Involvement Of Taurine

Compared with the increasingly application of acupuncture in the treatment of stroke in the early stage, the basic studies of these protective mechanisms are still limited so far. In the present study, we investigated the efficacy and the underlying mechanisms in right focal cerebral ischemia model induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in rat and monkey.In rat MCAO ischemic model, we investigated the efficacy of different acupoints electroacupuncture (EA). Our results showed that cortical local cerebral blood flow (LCBF) detected by Laser Doppler Flowmetry decreased dramatically to 20% after the onset of ischemia. The decrease was up-regulated to 40-45% immediately after the delivery of EA at 8 min post-ischemia on acupoints " RenZhong (Du 26) and BaiHui (Du 20)" group. In acupoints "QuChi (LI 11)" and "NeiGuan (P 6)" group of both left and right side, EA produced similar up-regulation effects on cortical LCBF with that in "RenZhong (Du 26)-BaiHui (Du 20)" group. No significant cortical LCBF changes were observed in "YangLingQuan (Gb 34)" and "SanYinJiao (Sp 6)" acupoints group. In the meanwhile, different efficacy on ischemic infarction and swelling appeared in different groups. EA on "RenZhong (Du 26)- BaiHui (Du 20)" acupoints and on left "QuChi (LI 11)- NeiGuan (P 6)" acupoints could significantly attenuate ischemia induced swelling and infarction (P< 0.05). On right "QuChi (LI 11)- NeiGuan (P 6)" acupoints, EA could decrease the ischemic swelling (P< 0.05), whereas no markedly decline was found in infarction (P> 0.05). Neither swelling nor infarction decreased in "YangLingQuan (Gb 34) - SanYinJiao (Sp 6)" acupoints group. The results indicated the better anti-ischemia efficacy in "RenZhong (Du 26)- BaiHui (Du 20)" acupoint-EA and in left "QuChi (LI 11)- NeiGuan (P 6)" acupoint-EA. In view of our previous studies, we selected "RenZhong (Du 26)- BaiHui (Du 20)" as the specific acupoints in our next experiments in the present study.Due to the multiple and integrative effect of acupuncture, the alterations in gene or protein expression induced by EA are certainly complicated. Current knowledge is restricted to a few genes and regulation of certain factors involved in acupuncture...