Study of the effects of electroacupuncture in a rodent model of cerebral ischaemia.
The effects of electroacupuncture (EA) has been studied in a model of global cerebral ischaemia performed in gerbils through the bilateral carotid artery occlusion (BCAO). Animals, under isofluorane anaesthesia, underwent 5 min of BCAO and were killed after 7 days. The effects of EA were evaluated both on functional (with electrophysiological recordings of synaptic potentials in hippocampal slices) and morphological parameters (by counting the number of survived neurons in CA1 area of the hippocampus). The results demonstrated that the treatment of animals with EA (5 min before, during and 20 min after BCAO and 30 min per day in the following 5 days) did not modify either the ischaemia-induced reduction of synaptic potentials amplitude, either ischaemia-induced neuronal loss in the hippocampus. We conclude that, at least in this animal model of cerebral ischaemia, EA does not exert a neuroprotective effect.
Domenici
Rosaria Maria
RM
Laboratorio di Farmacologia, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy. domenici@iss.it
Mingfu
Luo
L
Tebano
Maria Teresa
MT
Reggio
Rosaria
R
Chiarotti
Flavia
F
Petti
Filomena
F
Liguori
Aldo
A
Popoli
Patrizia
P
D000818:Animals; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000628:therapy*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D015671:Electroacupuncture; D005849:Gerbillinae