Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2021 Nov 8;16(11):e0259530. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259530. eCollection 2021.
Alzheimer's disease (AD), as one of most common dementia, mainly affects older people from the worldwide. In this study, we intended to explore the possible mechanism of improving cognitive function and protecting the neuron effect by electroacupuncture.
We applied senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8) mice as AD animal model, used Morris water maze, HE staining, 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing of gut microbiota and ELISA to demonstrate our hypothesis.
electroacupuncture improved the learning and memory abilities in SAMP8 mice (P<0.05) and could protect the frontal lobe cortex and hippocampus of SAMP8 mice; electroacupuncture significantly decreased the expression of IL-1β (P<0.01), IL-6 (P<0.01) and TNF-α (P<0.01 in hippocampus, P<0.05 in serum) in serum and hippocampus; electroacupuncture balanced the quantity and composition of gut microbiome, especially of the relative abundance in Delta-proteobacteria (P<0.05) and Epsilon-proteobacteria (P<0.05).
electroacupuncture treatment could inhibit the peripheral and central nerve system inflammatory response by balancing the gut microbiota.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）作为最常见的痴呆症之一，主要影响全球的老年人。在这项研究中，我们旨在探索电针对改善认知功能和保护神经元作用的可能机制。
我们应用衰老加速小鼠品系 8（SAMP8）作为 AD 动物模型，使用 Morris 水迷宫、HE 染色、肠道微生物群 16S rDNA 扩增子测序和 ELISA 来验证我们的假设。
电针对 SAMP8 小鼠的学习和记忆能力有改善作用（P<0.05），并能保护 SAMP8 小鼠的额叶皮质和海马；电针显著降低了血清和海马中 IL-1β（P<0.01）、IL-6（P<0.01）和 TNF-α（P<0.01 海马，P<0.05 血清）的表达；电针平衡了肠道微生物群的数量和组成，特别是δ-变形菌（P<0.05）和ε-变形菌（P<0.05）的相对丰度。
电针治疗通过平衡肠道微生物群来抑制外周和中枢神经系统的炎症反应。
