Study on intervention mechanism of acupuncture for neuron abnormal neural coding in visual cortex area 17 of monocular deprivation rats

• Published in: Journal of acupuncture and tuina science 2017-07, Vol.15 (4), p.257-262
• Main Authors: Zhu, Tian-tian, Ma, Chong-bing, Yan, Xing-ke
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acupuncture; Basic Study; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neurons
• ISSN: 1672-3597; 1993-0399
• DOI: 10.1007/s11726-017-1010-2

Objective To investigate the electrophysiological mechanism of acupuncture for the visual cortex plasticity during the sensitive period. Methods Fifty 2-week-old Wistar rats were randomly divided into a blank control group, a model group, an early-stage acupuncture group, a middle-stage acupuncture group and a late-stage acupuncture group, 10 rats in each group. Monocular deprivation amblyopia models were prepared in rats except those in the blank control group by unilateral eyelid suture. After successful modeling, no treatment was applied to the rats in the model group. Rats in each acupuncture group were treated with acupuncture at bilateral Jingming (BL 1), Cuanzhu (BL 2), Fengchi (GB 20) and Guangming (GB 37), started from the 3rd day, 12th day or 21st day after modeling separately, once a day, for a total of 9 d treatment. The neuronal discharge frequency and action potential inter-spike interval (ISI) in the rat visual cortex area 17 of each group were measured by multi-channel microelectrode array nerve signal technique. Results The discharge number of neurons in the visual cortex of the model group was significantly lower than that in the blank control group ( P