[The effects of C-fibers of primary afferent on immune responses regulated by EA in mice].

This work showed that electroacupuncture (EA) could enhance the ability of multiple immune responses in vehicle-treated animals. To study the role of primary sensory afferent C-fibers in the effect of EA on immume response, the experiments were performed on adult mice treated by capsaicin (cap) (50mg/kg) in neonate, cap is a tool drug selectively impairing afferent C-fibers. We found that the basal levels of multiple immune responses were changed apparently, showing that except the serum IgG decreased, all the spleen weight, thymus weight, spleen PFC, LTT, IL-2 and hemoagglutinating antibody titer elevated obviously in cap-treated mice as compared to that in vehicle control group. After the cap-treated mice were given EA, the levels of immune responses were found to be identical with cap-treated control group. The effects of EA-regulated immune response in vehicle-treated mice could not be observed in the cap-treated mice. The results mentioned above indicated that the effects of EA-regulated immune response were related to cap-sensitive afferent C-fibers.