| Results from ample anatomy and clinical medical imaging researches indicate that acupuncture points(acupoints) and the structure underlying the meridians have close relationship with connective tissue However,how do the acupuncture analgesic effects act on the aeupoints and the connective tissue remain unknown.Today,the development of the technology and the improvement of the researches bring about all kinds of hypothesizes.Now,there is a famous one suggested by the study group led by Langevin.It is proposed that the deformation of connective tissue during lift-thrust and rotation manipulation at the acupoints,may explain acupuncture therapeutic effects ([4,5and6].The above mentioned manipulation may act as mechanical stimulus on the connective tissue at the cellular level and may potentially be spread along connective tissue planes.Another report[7],the residue winded on the needle after being pulled out from the acupoints was mainly collagen fibers[7],provided powerful evidence to the hypothesis.Hence,it was speculated that the essential material of meridians may be the collagen fibers,whose function is to transmit the information and energy[8].In this study,we intend to explore the start-up mechanism for the initiation of acupuncture signal transmission of different acupuncture methods through modality observation,mechanical signal observation and the correlative analysis of acupuncture analgesic effects.The author first observed the role of collagen fibers and mast cells during acupuncturing the fascia of "Zusanli" in vitro experiment.Then in vivo experiment,Arthritis-Acute(AA) were used as rats' model,drugs' injection at acupoints were used to destroy or shield the different parts in acupuncture analgesic effect process and paw withdraw latencies(PWL) of the rats were recorded as the testing indicators of acupuncture effects. Zusanli(ST36),the commonly used acupoint for analgesia studies were chosen as the acupuncture points for different manipulations.Mechanical force,applied to the needle during manipulation,was recorded by a clinical monitor system in real-time.PT change rates were calculated out from the obtained PT data and morphological changes of collagen fibers and mast cells in staining sections of acupoints were observed microscopically.Then the degranulation ratios of mast cells in each group before and after acupuncture were compared.The experiment results in vitro showed that:Rotation manipulation could activate the function of mast cells' degranulation around the needle in the fascia of "Zusanli" in short time.The experiment results in vivo showed that:Both lift-thrusting and rotation manipulation could raise the PT of AA rats,which had excellent analgesic effects(P＜0.05).However,there was no significant difference between these groups(P＞0.05).When MA(rotation) was applied after injection of collagenase type-â… in ST36,the analgesic effects were evidently weakened(P＞0.05),but this was not observed for EA(P＜0.05).Similarly,the effect of MA(rotation) was evidently weakened after injection of DSCG in ST36(P＞0.05),but not observed in EA(P＜0.05).After analyzing the mechanical data collected during acupuncture,it was found that the force of lift-thrusting or twirling at ST36 declined visibly after collagenase type-â… injection,and had significant difference compared to those without injection(P＜0.05).The counting and statistical results of MCs from stained tissue slices showed that the mast cells degranulated obviously after manual and electro acupuncture and had significant difference compared to the group NC(P＜0.05),but the MCs' drgranulation ratios declined if pretreated with type-â… collagenase or DSCG at "Zusanli" and had significant differences compared to those without pretreatments(P＜0.05). The modality of collagen fibers in stained slices showed that some of the collagen fibers were ruptured after rotation manipulation and some became coarse after lift-thrusting manipulation.After type-â… collagenase pretreatment,the structure of collagen fibers was destroyed,its arrangement became out of order and the staining color became faded. Lift-thrusting manipulation at Zusanli(ST36) was found of excellent analgesic effects after injection of collagenase type-â… at Dubi(ST35) (P＜0.05),and its MCs degranulation ratios had significant difference compared to group M(P＜0.05).The results indicated that the collagen fibers participated in the initiation of manual acupuncture signal in the acupoints,and conducted the effective information into centrum by activating the function of MCs. However,the electro-acupuncture signal might be mediated by the peripheral nerve endings directly.In addition,the results suggest that there exists a positive relationship between the MCs degranulation ratios and the acupuncture analgesia and the results also provide evidence to the hypothesis that collagen fiber might be the basic foundation of acupuncture signal conduction. |
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