Acupuncture Promoted the Recovery of the Neural Plasticity Functions and the Repair of Neural Plasticity-Related Proteins in the Prefrontal Cortex of CUMS-induced Depressed Rats
التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان:
Acupuncture Promoted the Recovery of the Neural Plasticity Functions and the Repair of Neural Plasticity-Related Proteins in the Prefrontal Cortex of CUMS-induced Depressed Rats
Background: Acupuncture therapy in Traditional Chinese Medicine has been widely believed as a complementary treatment for depression with numerous clinic and research reports. However, mechanisms of neural plasticity about the positive effects of acupuncture still rarely reported. The purpose of our paper aim to investigate the efficiency of acupuncture in curing depressive-like behaviors and discuss the mechanism underling neural plasticity and its related proteins BDNF/PSD95/SYN/PKMZ in prefrontal cortex.Methods: 32 rats with the same baseline were divided into 4 groups at random: control group(8rats), model group(8rats), acupuncture group(8rats) and flouxetine group(8rats). Depression rat models were induced by chronic unpredictable mild stress combined with single cage isolation for 6 weeks. Acupuncture group and fluoxetine group then give 3-weeks treatment during the later 3weeks of modeling procedure. The open field test (OFT), elevated-plus-maze (EPM) and sucrose preference test (SPT) were executed to estimate the depressive behaviors. The number of nerve cells, the length of dendrites, and the spines density in prefrontal cortex were observed by Golgi staining. The expression of prefrontal cortex BDNF, PSD95, SYN and PKMZ protein were detected by western blot and their related mRNA were detected by RT-PCR.Results: Acupuncture could alleviate depressive-like behaviors and promote the recovery of the neural plasticity functions in prefrontal cortex, which exerted similar antidepressant effect as fluoxetine, increasing cells number, prolonging the dendrites length, enhancing the spine density. Conclusion: Acupuncture therapy could alleviate depressive-like behaviors which may contribute to the recovery of the neural plasticity functions and the repair of neural plasticity-related proteins BDNF/PSD95/SYN/PKMZ in the prefrontal cortex of CUMS-induced depressed rats.
