Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, 40402, Taiwan.
School of Chinese Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, 40402, Taiwan.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 1;10(1):10717. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-67766-0.
Different point stimulations can induce brain activity in specific regions, and however whether these stimulations affect unique neurotransmitter transmission remains unknown. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the effect of point specificity to the brain by resolving the metabolite profiles. Eighteen Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three groups: (1) the sham group: sham acupuncture at Zusanli (ST36) without electric stimulation; (2) the Zusanli (ST36) group: electroacupuncture (EA) at ST36; and (3) the Neiguan (PC6) group: EA at PC6. Then, the metabolites from rat brain samples were measured by LC-ESI-MS. The results of a partial least squares discriminant analysis revealed the differences among the sham, ST36, and PC6 groups regarding the relative content of metabolites in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. EA at PC6 resulted in downregulation of adenosine, adrenaline, γ-aminobutyric acid, glycine, and glutamate majorly in hippocampus, and then in cerebral cortex. Otherwise, EA at ST6 resulted in upregulation of adrenaline and arginine in hippocampus, and all stimulations showed barely change of identified neurotransmitters in hypothalamus. These differential metabolite and neurotransmitter profiles prove that brain areas can be modulated by point specificity and may provide a maneuver to understand more details of meridian.
不同的穴位刺激可以在特定区域诱导大脑活动，但这些刺激是否会影响独特的神经递质传递尚不清楚。因此，我们旨在通过解析代谢物谱来研究穴位特异性对大脑的影响。18 只 Sprague-Dawley 大鼠随机分为三组：（1）假针刺组：假针刺足三里（ST36）而不进行电刺激；（2）足三里（ST36）组：电针足三里（ST36）；（3）内关（PC6）组：电针内关（PC6）。然后，通过 LC-ESI-MS 测量大鼠脑组织样本中的代谢物。偏最小二乘判别分析的结果显示，假针刺组、ST36 组和 PC6 组之间，在大脑皮质、海马体和下丘脑的代谢物相对含量方面存在差异。电针 PC6 导致海马体中腺苷、肾上腺素、γ-氨基丁酸、甘氨酸和谷氨酸的下调，随后在大脑皮质中也出现下调。相反，电针 ST6 导致海马体中肾上腺素和精氨酸的上调，所有刺激对下丘脑内鉴定出的神经递质几乎没有变化。这些不同的代谢物和神经递质图谱证明，大脑区域可以通过穴位特异性进行调节，并且可能为进一步了解经络提供更多细节提供了一种手段。
