Scalp acupuncture was shown to improve neurological
deficits induced by intracerebral hemorrhage in a rat model. The study was
recently published in the journal of Complementary Therapies in Medicine.
Scalp acupuncture is a modern acupuncture technique in
which needles are penetrated the specific area of the scalp or lines on the
scalp. Scalp acupuncture differs significantly from classic acupuncture in that
it has its own theoretical basis and its acupoints are quite different from
traditional acupoints. Scalp acupuncture has been effectively used to treat
many neurological disorders including stroke. However, its mechanisms
underlying its effectiveness were not well illustrated.
Recently Dr. H Liu and colleagues conducted a
pre-clinical study to investigate the effect of scalp acupuncture on
neurological dysfunction of intracerebral hemorrhage stroke rat model, and
further the mechanism relating to the therapeutic effect. Rat model of
intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) received scalp acupuncture at acupoint DU20
through GB7 on the lesion side, for 30 mins, twice a day, from day one of
surgery for consecutive 7 days. A group of intracerebral hemorrhage model not
receiving scalp acupuncture and a group of sham surgery and a group of naïve
were used as controls. Behavioural testing included a composite neurological
scale, corner turn test, forelimb placing test, wire hang task and beam walking
were conducted at days 3 and 7, followed by biochemical studies such as western
blot analysis and histopathologic examination.
The data showed that at 3 days after intracerebral
hemorrhage, there was no significant difference of behavioural tests between
scalp acupuncture group and ICH and sham control groups compared to naïve control.
However, at day 7 after surgery, there was a significant improvement of
neurological deficits in scalp acupuncture treated group compared with ICH and sham
control groups. Biochemical studies showed that brain content of tumour
necrosis factor alpha and nuclear factor KappaB protein expression was markedly
decreased in scalp acupuncture group compared with ICH and sham groups.
The results demonstrated that improved behavioural
effects by scalp acupuncture were associated with improvement in pathological features
and decreased markers of inflammation in rat model of intracerebral hemorrhage.
Reference
H Liu et al., Scalp acupuncture attenuates neurological
deficits in a rat model of hemorrhagic stroke. Complementary Therapies in
Medicine 32 (2017) 85–90. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28619309
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