| Background:With the development and application of acupuncture,specificity of points and meridians is becoming a fundamental question the efficacy of acupuncture,and its research point transfer from the simple physical and chemical biomarkers to more evaluation of the impact on the central nervous system.With the development and application of functional magnetic reso-nance imaging(fMRI),positron emission tomography(PET),single photon emission computed tomography(SPECT)and other brain imaging techniques,to observe the effect of acupuncture acupoints on central nervous system activity became available.Study the effect of acupoints has entered a new stage.Hypertension in TCM,mostly attributable to the "Liver Wind," "Ver-tigo," "headache" and other diseases.In the past,the researches of acu-puncture lowering blood pressure(bp)mostly the think that the syndromes in early hypertension is hyperactivity of liver yang,and mostly chose Taichong which can calm the liver and suppress yang,as research point.Yet hypertension in TCM is not only one syndrome as hyperactivity of liver yang,its fundamental pathogenesis is deficiency of liver and kidney.There are also other TCM syndromes responsible for hypertension.Ququan is the He point of liver meridian,and belongs to water in five elements,which is the mother acupoint of liver meridian and can nourish yin and contain yang.It can stop the hyperactivity of liver yang.Furthermore,Foot Yangming stomach meridian is abundant in qi and blood,and distribute in the face.When qi and blood of Yangming meridian accumulate in the upper part,head-ache and vertigo happens.Chongyang is the origin points of stomach and can regulate the flow of the meridian qi,which can be needled in the case of hypertension caused by accumulation of stomach qi in upper part.This study observe the effect of lowering bp when needling the 3 points,and probe the impact on the activity of central nervous system using posi-tron emission tomography and computed tomography(PET-CT).PET-CT can ob-serve the effects of acupuncture on brain activity,combined with CT tech-nology it can display functional activity and anatomy structure of the brain intuitively.This study planned to observe the effect of lowering bp and the special impaction to the central nervous system using PET-CT and based on the of acupoints-brain-related theory.Objects:To explore the effect of lowering bp of Taichong compared to Chongyang and Ququan,search the special functional brain area of Taichong by com-paring the PET-CT image of the three points,to discover the brain mechanism.Methods:(1)research of antihypertensive effect of Taichong,Chongyang and Ququan55 SPF grade 9 week old male spontaneous hypertension rats(SHR)were divided randomly into 5 groups,Taichong group,Chongyang group,Ququan group,non-acupoint group,and model group,each containing 11 rats.8 9 week old male Wistar rats make normal group.?Measure the basic bp.All rats were fed for 1 week to adapt environ-ment and measured systolic blood pressure(sbp)and diastolic blood pressure(dbp)in tail artery.?Acupuncture therapy.Taichong group,Chongyang group,Ququan group,non-acupoint group needled respective acupoints and rats model group were held for 5 minute to simulate other group did when needling.The needling group rats were needled in respective acupoints in right and left for 5 minutes each when they are awake,using twisting tactics 80±10 times per minutes with twist magnitude 180?±30°.All rats were needled once per day in the morning for 7 days.?Measure post-therapy bp.In the 7th day,all rats were measured bp after needling.?Test the bp of every group inter-group,before and after treatment.(2)Research of Taichong,Chongyang and Ququan with PET-CT imageThe research use the same design and therapy methods to the research of antihypertensive effect of Taichong,Chongyang and Ququan.Instant PET-CT scan.In the 1st day of acupuncture therapy,the rats were injected 18F-FDG in tail artery at the 2nd minute of needling phase,and finish the therapy.30 minutes after the 18F-FDG injection,rats were anaes-thetized in anesthesia box with isoflurane for 5 minutes.Isoflurane were continuously given to rats through mask to maintain anesthesia.Whole brain PET-CT scan was carried out during anesthesia.The model group and normal group were held for 5 minutes to simulate other group,then enter the same process of anesthesia and PET-CT scanning.After therapy PET-CT scanning.After 7 days therapy,all rats were scanned with PET-CT at the 8th day with the same process to instant scanning.Data processing.All PET-CT images were analyzed with SPM 5.The images were pre-treated to exclude those with bad quality,then used in statistical modeling and analysis.The active brain areas of each point were concluded by comparing to model group and non-acupoint group.The compare use inde-pendent t test,CI set to P<0.005,cluster threshold set K?20.The active brain areas were recognized according their coordinate and rechecked manu-ally.According to the results of research of lowering bp,analysis were made to those active brain areas when needling Taichong,Chongyang and Ququan to find out the responsive brain area for lowering bp and its mechanism.Results:Research of effect of lowering bp.Before acupuncture therapy,bp and weight of all groups were tested and there were no significant difference between them(P<0.05).After therapy,bp of all needling group were sig-nificantly higher than normal group.All bps except the dbp of Taichong group were increased insignificantly after therapy(P>0.05).Compared to model group,the Taichong Group sbp and dpb were significantly lower(P<0.05),other groups have no significant differences(P>0.05).the com-pare among Taichong group,Chongyang group Ququan group and non-acupoint group show no significance(P>0.05),too.Research of PET-CT.In the bp research,Taichong was found significant in lowering bp.So the focus was put on Taichong.In the instant PET-CT results,no brain area was found to relate to antihypertensive effect of Taichong.In the after therapy PET-CT scanning,amygdala and piriform cortex were found to be activated only by Taichong,which may be the key brain areas responsible for antihypertensive effect of Taichong.After document retrieval amygdala was found to be frequently mentioned in anti-hyperten-sion research,bur piriform cortex was rarely mentioned.Conclusion:In antihypertensive effect to spontaneous hypertension rats,Taichong is not significantly better than Chongyang,Ququan or non-acupoint,but is significantly better than no therapy.Taichong is still the best anti-hypertensive acupoint among the three points.Amygdala may be the responsible brain area for antihypertensive effect of Taichong.The mechanism of Piriform cortex remains unknown in the anti-hypertensive effect of Taichong... |
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