Yan Bing, Tang Shengyu, Zhang Yuqiu, Xiao Xiao
Key Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Ministry of Education; Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence; MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Pain Med. 2023 Jan 4;24(1):11-24. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnac115.
As a traditional Chinese therapy, acupuncture is proposed worldwide as a treatment for pain and other health problems, but findings on acupuncture analgesia have been inconsistent because of its variable modalities of therapeutic intervention.
This study aimed to evaluate the existing animal studies for evidence on acupuncture and its effect on glia in association with a reduction in pain conditions.
Literature searches were performed in four English- and Chinese-language databases (Web of Science, PubMed, EMBASE, and CNKI) on October 8, 2021. Included studies reported the pain outcome (e.g., paw withdrawal latency, paw withdrawal threshold) and glia outcome (e.g., glial marker GFPA, Iba1, and OX42) in pain-induced animals during acupuncture treatment.
Fifty-two preclinical studies were included in the meta-analysis. A single acupuncture treatment in rodents had an analgesic effect, which was more effective in inflammatory pain than in neuropathic pain in the early phase of treatment. The analgesic efficacy became more curative after repeated acupuncture. Furthermore, acupuncture treatment could effectively inhibit the activity of astrocytes and microglia in both inflammatory pain and neuropathic pain in a time-course pattern.
Acupuncture treatment improves analgesic effect in rodent pain conditions under the possible mechanism of glial inhibition. Therefore, these results provide an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture analgesia and neuroinflammation in animal models to research further neurobiological mechanisms and to inform the design of future clinical trials.
PROSPERO (ID: CRD42020196011).
作为一种中医疗法，针灸在全球范围内被推荐用于治疗疼痛和其他健康问题，但由于其治疗干预方式的多样性，关于针刺镇痛的研究结果并不一致。
本研究旨在评估现有的动物研究，以获取针灸及其对神经胶质细胞影响与疼痛状况减轻相关的证据。
于2021年10月8日在四个英文和中文数据库（科学网、PubMed、EMBASE和中国知网）中进行文献检索。纳入的研究报告了针刺治疗期间疼痛诱导动物的疼痛结果（如爪退缩潜伏期、爪退缩阈值）和神经胶质细胞结果（如神经胶质细胞标志物GFPA、Iba1和OX42）。
52项临床前研究纳入荟萃分析。在啮齿动物中单次针刺治疗具有镇痛作用，在治疗早期对炎性疼痛的效果比对神经性疼痛更有效。重复针刺后镇痛效果更具疗效。此外，针刺治疗可在炎性疼痛和神经性疼痛中以时间进程模式有效抑制星形胶质细胞和小胶质细胞的活性。
针刺治疗在神经胶质细胞抑制的可能机制下改善啮齿动物疼痛状况的镇痛效果。因此，这些结果为评估针刺镇痛和神经炎症在动物模型中的有效性提供了机会，以进一步研究神经生物学机制并为未来临床试验的设计提供信息。
PROSPERO（编号：CRD42020196011）
