Effect Of Acupuncture On NGF, BDNF, GFAP And NO/NOS In Rats With Prenatal Hypoxia-ischemic Brain Damage

Part 1 Literature ReviewWe have comprehensively studied the literature on prenatal hypoxia-ischemic brain damage(HIBD) in a large scale.Firstly,analyze the term,symptoms,etiology,pathogenesis and treatments of prenatal HIBD in Chinese medicine;secondly,focus on clinical and experimental research on prenatal HIBD in modern medicine.The mechanism of HIBD is very complicated and further studies have been taken recent years.The pathogenesis of HIBD has still not been cleared up exactly,however,the progress on molecular biology assures the studies on HIBD at molecular level to be the newly hope as both the prevention and treatment to HIBD.No specific treatment has been found yet.Experts from home and aboard have carried out a series of research and obtained some achievements,in which,the acupuncture therapy has arisen more and more attention in the world and should be studied further.PART 2 Experimental ResearchesObjective:to study the effects and mechanism of acupuncture therapy in prenatal hypoxia-ischemic brain damage on newborn rats by measuring the weight of the hemisphere,the level of NGF,BDGF,GFAP in the brain tissue and NO,NOS in blood serum.Methods:separated and ligated bilateral uteral arteries of pregnant rats to block the blood supply for 25 minutes then delivered fetal rats as the models of perinatal HIBD.16 qualified models were divided equally into acupuncture group and model group randomly by coins.The normal group had 8 fetal rats which were delivered immediately since the cervixes in pregnant rats were clipped by haemostatic forceps during operations only.The rest fetal rats were discarded.The normal group and model group received no treatment. The acupuncture group was treated by jin-3-needling from the7 day to 30 day postnatal.At the 31 day,when the experiment was over,cut the heads of the fetal rats under intraperitoneal anesthesia and removed the brains and plasma. Tested the protein expression of NGF,BDGF,GFAP in brain tissue and levels of NO,NOS in blood serum.Results:1.Effects of acupuncture on the weight of brain.The net weight of hemisphere was the lowest in the model group(0.467±0.021),showing a significant difference against the normal group(0.548±0.021) and the acupuncture group(0.540±0.019)(P＜0.05);while there were no significant difference between the acupuncture group and the normal group (P＞0.05)2.Effects of acupuncture on NGF in brainThe protein expression of NGF were increased evidently in the acupuncture group(3.90±0.47),whose had significant difference(P＜0.01) compared to the model group(2.05±0.36).And the difference between the model group and the normal group(1.12±0.24) was also significant(P＜0.05)3.Effects of acupuncture on BDNF in brainThe protein levels of BDNF were the lowest in the model group(0.23±0.05),which had significant difference(P＜0.05) against the normal group (0.50±0.21);The protein expression of BDNF were increased evidently in the acupuncture group(1.24±0.18),whose had significant difference(P＜0.01) compared to the model group.4.Effect of acupuncture on GFAP in brainGFAP was weakly expressed in the normal brain tissue of rats(1.01±0.21),but increased obviously in the model group(1.63±0.19).In the acupuncture group,the expression of GFAP was decreased evidently(1.08±0.20),who had a significant difference against the model group(P＜0.05).5.Effects of acupuncture on NO,NOS level in blood serumThe NO,NOS level in the model group(87.65±55.75,43.37±15.97) were higher than that in the normal group(39.76±28.72,19.23±8.89)(P＜0.05). The NO,NOS level in the acupuncture group(60.79±51.42,29.19±12.89) were decreased compared to the model group(P＜0.05).No significant difference was showed between the acupuncture group and the normal group(P＞0.05).Conclusion:1,Prenatal hypoxia ischemia has negative effects to the rat brain during its growth and development,while the acupuncture therapy can increase the weight of the injured brain in developmental stage.2.The acupuncture therapy increases obviously the activity of NGF, which is responsible to the recovery of damaged neurons.3.The acupuncture therapy increases obviously the expression of BDNF, which is also responsible to recover the damaged neurons.4.The acupuncture therapy depresses the expression of the GFAP and avoids the proliferation of the neuroglial scar.5.Acupuncture reduces the level of NO,the activity of NOS and their toxicity to the nerve system in the rats with prenatal brain damages.The effects of acupuncture on the expression of NGF,BDNF,GFAP and the regulation to the system of NO/NOS may be related to neuroprotection or by avoiding death or apoptosis of the neurons.The regulation of the acupuncture therapy mentioned above reveals its effect on treating anoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.