Effect of Electroacupuncture at Acupoints of the Governor Vessel on Aquaporin-4 in Rat with Experimental Spinal Cord Injury

摘要

This study is to investigate the effects of electroacupuncture at acupoints of the Governor Vessel(GV) onaquaporin-4 (AQP-4) expression and on functions of the hind limbs in the rat of spinal cord injury. Thefunctions of the hind limbs were detected with BBB scale on the 1d,3d,7d and 21d after the spinal cordinjury,respectively,and AQP-4 expression in the spinal cord was determined with immunohistochemicalmethod and analyzed quantitatively with image analyzer. The results indicated that on the ld after the spinalcord injury,increased AQP-4 expression can be seen significantly in both the gray matter and the whitematter of the injured spinal cord,and it reached the peaks on the 3d after the spinal cord injury in both theelectroacupuncture group and the spinal cord injury group. However,AQP-4 express was significantlydecreased in the electroacupuncture group as compared with that in the control group on 7d,14d and 21d(P<0.05 or P<0.01). The decrease of AQP-4 expression almost went with the improvement of theneurological function,which suggested that electroacupuncture at the acupoints of the Governor Vessel caninhibit edema of the spinal cord to alleviate the secondary spinal cord injury by means of decreasing theAQP-4 expression after the spinal cord injury,so as to protect the residual normal spinal cord tissues andpromote the rebuilding of nervous tissues.