Do Electro-acupuncture And Manual Acupuncture Play The Same Role On Regulating Astrocyte Plasticity In Cerebral Ischemia

Objective: By observing the neuromotor functional recovery andastrocytes (AS) activation in cerebral ischemia rat, we try to investigatewhether the electro-acupuncture (EA)and manual acupuncture exert differenteffects on the treatment of cerebral infarction, and how do they work.Methods: By occlusion of the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO)with clew we got models of cerebral infarction rats. Dividing them randomlyinto4groups: Sham group, model group, electro-acupuncture group andmanual acupuncture group. Then according3,7,14day, each group wasdivided into3sub group (n=8). Took bederson method to assess cerebralneurological recovery in rats. Glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP) wasdetected by immunohistochemical methods. And the ultrastructural ofastrocytes were observed by electron microscope. Results:Each time point, in the model group neurological deficit scoreshigher than acupuncture treatment group (p <0.01,0.05), and there were nosignificant difference between the EA group and acupuncture group had (p>0.05). We also learned that EA group had a tendency to be more excellent inspeed and degree to decrease nerve function defect score.Immunohistochemical results showed that: GFAP expression increased afterinfarction. In each time point GFAP positive cells in acupuncture group wasmore than model group (p <0.01,0.05). Meanwhile, there was no significancedifferent between the two acupuncture group at3d and7d (p>0.05). Howeverat14d, GFAP expressed higher in the manual acupuncture (p <0.01).SEM results showed that: The neurons undergo progressive degenerationand necrosis in cerebral infarction. Acupuncture therapy could effectively savethe dying neurons of brain ischemia marginal zone. In the early stage ofcerebral ischemia, astrocytes through edema-like change: organelle swellingand the number decrease. As the time passing, astrocytes came out reactivehyperplasia, with the increased organelles and cellular hypertrophy.Acupuncture treatment could reduce astrocytes edema, as well as maintainnormal morphology of astrocytes. Also, we observed that astrocytes in EAgroup showed a expression peak in7d, while those in manual acupuncturepresented a slow increase in the number of astrocytes in the14d. Ischemia andhypoxia can damage the synaptic structure, especially in functional synapses.Due to the plasticity of the nervous system itself, even in model group, we could still observed a certain amount of new synapses. Acupuncture treatmentcould shorten the time in new synapses formation and stimulate the moresynapses sprout.Conclusion:(1) Both electro-acupuncture and manual acupuncture could promote theneurological function recovery of the rats with cerebral infraction。While，electro-acupuncture preformed better。(2) Acupuncture has a protective effect to neurological function recoveryin rats with cerebral infraction. The possible mechanism is that acupuncturecan regulate the expression of GFAP and the activation of astrocytes，as wellas initiate brain plasticity...