[Acupuncture Intervention Improves Behavior Reactions and Learning-memory Ability in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Rats].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the therapeutic effect of acupuncture in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-induced abnormal behavior reactions and learning-memory ability in rats with traumatic injury.

METHODS: Sixty male SD rats were randomly divided into control, model, model＋animal capturing (capturing), medication and acupuncture groups ( n ＝12 rats in each). The PTSD model was established by "electric shock plus incarceration" method. Acupuncture was applied to "Baihui" (GV 20), and unilateral "Neiguan" (PC 6), "Shenmen" (HT 7) and "Taichong" (LR 3) once daily for 12 days. The rats in the medication group were treated by gavage of Paroxetine Hydrochloride solution (0.42 mg/mL), once daily for 12 days. The open field test containing horizontal (crossing grid lines) and rearing tests was performed for examining the rats' locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior; and location navigation (escape latency) and special probe tests (platform quadrant crossing times) of Morris water maze tasks were detected for assessing the rats' learning-memory ability. On day 12 of the experiments, the rats were submitted to 3 consecutive sessions of open field tests for observing the time of familiar objects (TF) and the time of novelty object (TN) of exploration in 5 min (an object-location and an object-recognition tasks), followed by calculating the discrimination index [DI＝(TN－TF)/(TN＋TF)x100%].

RESULTS: After modeling, compared with the control group, the numbers of crossed grids and rearing, and DI were significantly decreased ( P <0.05), while the number of fecal pellets and escape latency were significantly increased in both the model and capturing groups ( P <0.05). After the intervention, the number of both crossed grids and rearing, platform quadrant crossing times, and DI were considerably increased ( P <0.05), and the rats' escape latency and fecal pellet number were obviously decreased in both medication and acupuncture groups relevant to the model and capturing groups ( P <0.05). No significant differences were found between the acupuncture and medication groups in the above mentioned 5 indexes ( P >0.05)．.

CONCLUSION: Acupuncture can effectively reduce anxiety-like behavior and improve the impaired learning-memory ability in PTSD rats.