title: Pinching spine: A potential treatment for depression.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether pinching spine (PS, i.e. , a traditional Chinese manipulative therapy) is beneficial to ameliorating the depressive state (including behavioral deficit, retardative weight gain and decreased sucrose consumption) in a rat model of depression induced by chronic unpredictable stress (CUS) and to explore the candidate mechanism of action.
  
  
  METHODS
  PS was performed on rats' spine once daily for 1 week after exposure to CUS. The open-field test, body weight measuring, and sucrose intake test were applied on different dates: before stress (d0), at the end of stress (d21) and after PS treatment (d28), respectively. Then the rats' hippocampuses were performed genome-wide microarray analysis, and the expression levels of several genes were evaluated by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Exposure to CUS resulted in decreases of behavioral activity and sucrose consumption, which were reversed significantly after PS treatment. The expression of several genes relevant to energy metabolism, anti-oxidation, and olfactory receptor, etc., were down-regulated, while the expression of those relevant to hemostasis, immunity-inflammation, and restriction of activities and ingestion, etc., were up-regulated in hippocampuses of rats exposed to CUS. PS treatment significantly inverted these changes. Furthermore, increase or decrease in gene expression evaluated by realtime PCR was concordant with up-regulated or down-regulated expression evaluated by microarray analysis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  PS showed a potential antidepressant-like effect, of which the action mechanism might be due to gene expression regulation in hippocampus.
authors.affiliation: Cultivating Candidate of the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Acupuncture and Medication, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China. birddingdang@yahoo.com.cn.|The Second Clinical College of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China. birddingdang@yahoo.com.cn.
authors.forename: Li-hua
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Cultivating Candidate of the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Acupuncture and Medication, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China.|The Second Clinical College of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China.
authors.forename: Ling-ling
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Basic Medical College of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China.
authors.forename: Ming-yan
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Basic Medical College of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China.
authors.forename: Hao-xin
authors.initials: HX
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China.
authors.forename: Yi-jie
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.affiliation: Basic Medical College of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-lin
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Basic Medical College of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210029, China.
authors.forename: Mei-juan
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003863:Depression / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D026201:Musculoskeletal Manipulations; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013131:Spine / Q000503:physiopathology*