Open AccessLong-term acupuncture treatment has a multi-targeting regulation on multiple brain regions in rats with Alzheimer's disease: a positron emission tomography study
Author(s) -
Ye Lu,
Xiaowen Cai,
Guifeng Zhang,
Yong Huang,
Changyuan Tang,
Baoci Shan,
Shaoyang Cui,
Junqi Chen,
Shanshan Qu,
Zhili Zheng,
Xinsheng Lai,
Genevieve Z. Steiner
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
neural regeneration research/neural regeneration research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.93
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1876-7958
pISSN - 1673-5374
DOI - 10.4103/1673-5374.211197
Subject(s) - zusanli , medicine , dry needling , positron emission tomography , hippocampus , neuroscience , temporal cortex , pons , acupuncture , cerebellum , alzheimer's disease , anesthesia , pathology , electroacupuncture , psychology , nuclear medicine , disease , alternative medicine
The acute effect of acupuncture on Alzheimer's disease, i.e ., on brain activation during treatment, has been reported. However, the effect of long-term acupuncture on brain activation in Alzheimer's disease is unclear. Therefore, in this study, we performed long-term needling at Zusanli (ST36) or a sham point (1.5 mm lateral to ST36) in a rat Alzheimer's disease model, for 30 minutes, once per day, for 30 days. The rats underwent 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography scanning. Positron emission tomography images were processed with SPM2. The brain areas activated after needling at ST36 included the left hippocampus, the left orbital cortex, the left infralimbic cortex, the left olfactory cortex, the left cerebellum and the left pons. In the sham-point group, the activated regions were similar to those in the ST36 group. However, the ST36 group showed greater activation in the cerebellum and pons than the sham-point group. These findings suggest that long-term acupuncture treatment has targeted regulatory effects on multiple brain regions in rats with Alzheimer's disease.