Electroacupuncture Pretreatment Elicits Tolerance to Cerebral Ischemia/Reperfusion through Inhibition of the GluN2B/m-Calpain/p38 MAPK Proapoptotic Pathway.

Background: As one of the first steps in the pathology of cerebral ischemia, glutamate-induced excitotoxicity progresses too fast to be the target of postischemic intervention. However, ischemic preconditioning including electroacupuncture (EA) might elicit cerebral ischemic tolerance through ameliorating excitotoxicity.

Objective: To investigate whether EA pretreatment based on TCM theory could elicit cerebral tolerance against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, and explore its potential excitotoxicity inhibition mechanism from regulating proapoptotic pathway of the NMDA subtype of glutamate receptor (GluN2B).

[Development of research on mechanisms of acupuncture intervention and relationship between astrocyte and ischemic stroke].

Astrocytes are the most abundant cells in the central nervous system, which has been demonstrated to be one of the targets for the treatment of ischemic stroke. Many studies have confirmed that acupuncture can effectively regulate astrocyte activity in ischemic stroke through these approaches: repairing astrocyte morphology structure, regu-lating energy metabolism, inhibiting excitotoxicity, inhibiting inflammation response and promoting nerve regeneration. In this paper, the authors summarized the relationship between astrocyte and ischemic stroke, and discussed the mechanisms of acupuncture therapy underlying improvement of ischemic stroke.