Electroacupuncture and Curcumin Promote Oxidative Balance and Motor Function Recovery in Rats Following Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a condition that puts the patient's life at risk in the acute phase and, during the chronic stage, results in permanent deficits in motor, sensory and autonomic functions. Isolated therapeutic strategies have not shown an effect on this condition. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of electroacupuncture (EA) and curcumin, alone or combined, on the oxidative balance, motor function recovery and amount of preserved tissue following a traumatic SCI.

Acupuncture Points and Their Relationship with Multireceptive Fields of Neurons.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture points (APs) have been emphasized as key elements that generate the therapeutic effects of acupuncture. At the spinal cord or supraspinal level, sensory neurons located in the dorsal horn receive an extensive supply of sensory information from skin and muscle receptors through peripheral afferent nerves. The stimulated skin area that influences the activity of a spinal sensory neuron is known as the peripheral receptive field (RF) of that neuron.

Electroacupuncture improves gait locomotion, H-reflex and ventral root potentials of spinal compression injured rats.

This study explored the effect of electroacupuncture stimulation (EA) on alterations in the Hoffman reflex (H-reflex) response and gait locomotion provoked by spinal cord injury (SCI) in the rat. A compression lesion of the spinal cord was evoked by insufflating a Fogarty balloon located in the epidural space at the T8-9 spinal level of adult Wistar male rats (200-250 gr; n=60). In different groups of SCI rats, EA (frequencies: 2, 50 and 100Hz) was applied simultaneously to Huantiao (GB30), Yinmen (BL37), Jizhong (GV6) and Zhiyang (GV9) acupoints from the third post-injury day until the experimental session.

Electro-Acupuncture at GV.4 Improves Functional Recovery in paralyzed rats after a Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury.

In the present study, the effect of electro-acupuncture (EA) on the oxidative stress, the spinal cord tissue preservation and the recovery of motor function was evaluated after a traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI). Long Evans rats were randomized into five groups: 1. Sham; 2.

Stimulation of the Po-shen and Shen-hun scalp-acupuncture bands modifies levels of inhibitory and excitatory amino acids in the immature rat brain.

Objective: In the present study, the effect of stimulation of the Po-shen and Shen-hun scalp-acupuncture bands on tissue amino acid concentrations in several brain regions in awake and pentobarbital-sedated immature rats was evaluated.

Materials And Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats (aged 15 days) were organized in four groups of at least eight animals: control groups received saline solution 0.9% or sodium pentobarbital at 30mg/kg dosage via intraperitoneal.