Normalization of ventral tegmental area structure following acupuncture in a rat model of heroin relapse
Rongjun Zhang
Xinghui Cai
Xiaoge Song
Chaoyang Dong
Xiaorong Hou
Lei Lv
摘要：Drugs can cause obvious damage to the brain. To verify the relationship between acupuncture, neurotrophic factor expression and brain cell structural changes, this study established a rat model of heroin relapse using intramuscular injection of increasing amounts of heroin. During the detoxiifcation period, rat models received acupuncture at Baihui (DU20) and Dazhui (DU14). Electron microscopy demonstrated that the structure of the ventral tegmental area in heroin relapse rats gradually became normalized after acupuncture treatment. Immunohistochem-ical staining exhibited that the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor increased in the ventral tegmental area following acupuncture. Moreover, the effects were similar to that of methadone, a type of medicine called an opioid. Results suggested that acupuncture at Baihui and Dazhui protected brain neurons against injury in rats with heroin relapse by promoting brain-derived neurotrophic factor and glial cell line-de-rived neurotrophic factor expression.
机标关键词：neurotrophic factoracupuncture treatmentglial cellstructural changesrat modeltype of
资助基金：This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, (No.81173325)the Anhui Provincial Higher Learning School Excellent Youth Project, (No.2010SQRL105)Anhui Provincial Higher Learning Natural Science Project, (No. KJ2013Z180)
论文发表日期：2014-01-01
在线出版日期：2025-08-15（本平台首次上网日期，不代表文献的发表时间）
页数：7( 301-307 )
英文信息