Abstract
Acupuncture affects the central nervous system via the regulation of neurotransmitter transmission. We previously showed that Shemen (HT7) acupoint stimulation decreased cocaine-induced dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Here, we used the intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) paradigm to evaluate whether HT stimulation regulates the brain reward function of rats. We found that HT stimulation triggered a rightward shift of the frequency–rate curve and elevated the ICSS thresholds. However, HT7 stimulation did not affect the threshold-lowering effects produced by cocaine. These results indicate that HT7 points only effectively regulates the ICSS thresholds of the medial forebrain bundle in drug-naïve rats.
Highlights
We found that acupuncture at HT7 significantly increased the intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) thresholds, as revealed by the rightward shifts of the frequency–rate curves of drug-naïve rats compared to controls
These results suggest that stimulation of HT7 points affected the brain reward functions of drug-naïve rats, which are hypothesized to reflect attenuation of the acute rewarding effects of electrical stimulation
Earlier work showed that when the stimulating electrode was located in the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) or ventral tegmental area (VTA), ICSS per se promoted DA release in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) [18], and this was enhanced by drugs of abuse that intrinsically increase extracellular DA levels in the NAc [11,19]
Summary
Cocaine reliably facilitates ICSS of the MFB [7,8] and is often interpreted as an abuse-related effect [6]. Such cocaine-induced facilitation of ICSS appears to involve activation of the mesolimbic DA system [9,10,11]. ICSS behavior is attenuated dose-dependently by drugs that decrease DA levels or inactivate DA receptors [12] Methamphetamine-induced DA enhancement in the NAc was reduced by acupuncture at HT7 [17] These results suggest that such acupuncture could control the mesolimbic DA system by regulating DA release. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to investigate the effects of acupuncture on the brain reward function using an ICSS paradigm in an animal model
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