Dual Solid "acupuncture Model Of Parkinson's Disease Substantia Nigra Of Rats With Neural Stem Cell Proliferation,

Objective Parkinson' disease (PD) is a kind of chronic and progressive degenerative neuropathy which is commonly seen among the elderly. In recent decades the incidence of PD becomes higher gradually than before. There exist many difficulties in the treatment of the disease across the world. The losing of dopaminergic neurons in the patient' substantia nigra of midbrain plays the primary role in the pathology of the disease. At present there is no effective therapeutics to treat PD except the allopathy. The discovery of neural stem cells in the adult mammalian brain provides a new chance to effect a radical cure on PD. But how to make the limited neural stem cells proliferating enough and differentiating into the dopaminergic neurons which can repair the nigrostriatal pathway and help to eliminate the PD symptoms becomes an urgent problem. Focusing on this problem , we observed the effects of the acupuncture therapy of "ShuangGuYiTong" on the proliferation of the neural stem cells in the substantia nigro of the Parkinsonian rats and explored the molecular mechanisms from the expressions of the basic fibroblast growth factor(bFGF) and epidermal growth factor(EGF) which are two important growth factors concerning with the proliferation and differentiation of the neural stem cells. The research is expected to provide the experimental basis for uncovering the therapeutic mechanisms of acupuncture treating PD.Approach There are 40 Wistar rats , weighting from 180g to 220g, divided averagely into 4 groups: Normal Group, Sham-modeling Group, Model Group and Acu-Therapy Group. The Parkinsonian rats were modeled by stereotaxical microquantitative injection in the right striatum with 6-hydroxydopamine. 6 weeks later, the hypodermic injection of apomorphine was made to induce the modeled rats to rotate. The rats rotating beyond 6rpm were regarded as the Parkinsonian rats. After the success of the modeling, the acu-therapy group was treated by needling the four acupoints of "guanyuan", "zusanli", "Fengfu" and Taichong" for 2 weeks. Then, immunohistochemical staining methods were adopted to observe the morphologic changes of substantia nigra and quantify the TH, nestin, bFGF and EGF positive cells. The results were obtained through image analysis.Results 1. The total TH positive neurons of the substantia nigra of the destructive side in Model Group are obviously lower than that in Normal Group and Sham-modeling Group(p<0.01). Compared to Model Group, the relevant index of Acu-Therapy Group is obviously increased (p<0.01),but is still obviously lower than that in Normal Group and Sham-modeling Group(p<0.01).2. The total nestin positive neurons of the substantia nigra of the destructive side in Acu-Therapy Group are obviously higher than that in other three groups(p<0.01).3. The bFGF and EGF expression level of the substantia nigra of the destructive side in Model Group is somewhat higher than that in Normal Group and Sham-modeling Group, but there is no obvious difference between each other(P > 0.05). Compared to other three groups, the relevant indexes of Acu-Therapy Group are obviously increased (bFGF: P<0.01, EGF: P < 0.05).Conclusions1.The acupuncture therapy of "ShuangGuYiTong" can effectively increase the quantity of dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra of the Parkinsonian rats.2. The acupuncture therapy of "ShuangGuYiTong" can promote the proliferation of the neural stem cells of the substantia nigra of the Parkinsonian rats.3. The acupuncture therapy of "ShuangGuYiTong" can increase the expression level of bFGF and EGF of the substantia nigra of the Parkinsonian rats. The increase of bFGF is more obvious than that of EGF.4. The promoting effect on the proliferation of neural stem cells of the substantia nigra of the Parkinsonian rats by the acupuncture therapy of "ShuangGuYiTong" is perhaps due to the increasing of the expression of bFGF and EGF.