Acupuncture Treatment for Social Defeat Stress.

Jun Kawanokuchi,Nobuyuki Nagaoka,Ken Takagi,Ning Ma,Torao Ishida,Nobuyuki Tanahashi,Teruhisa Yamamoto

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2021.685433

Jun Kawanokuchi, Nobuyuki Nagaoka + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2021.685433

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Abstract

Depression is a mood disorder characterized by disordered affect, thoughts, cognition, and behavior. Antidepressant therapy is often the primary treatment for depression. However, antidepressant therapy may cause unwanted side effects, and its effects are slow. Therefore, some patients are seeking alternative treatments for depression, such as acupuncture. However, there are many unclear points regarding the mechanism of the effect of acupuncture on depression. In recent years, we have reported that acupuncture improves the symptoms of mild depression induced by water-immersion stress in a rat model and depression induced by forced swimming in a mouse model. In this study, we examined the effect of acupuncture on the symptoms of social defeat stress (SDS)-induced depression in mice that most closely resemble human symptoms. In this study, we investigated the preventive and therapeutic effects of acupuncture as part of GV20 “Bai-Hui” and Ex-HN3 “Yintang” on model mice with depression induced by SDS. To examine the mechanism of the preventive and therapeutic effects of acupuncture on depression model mice, we examined the expression of neurotrophic factors in the brains of SDS mice. Two weeks of simultaneous acupuncture stimulation as part of GV20 and Ex-HN3 restored SDS-reduced brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), neurotrophin (NT)-3, and NT-4/5 expression, which was not observed with antidepressants. In contrast, acupuncture stimulation suppressed nerve growth factor (NGF) expression induced by SDS. These results suggest that acupuncture treatment could be effective in correcting the imbalance in the expression of neurotrophic factors. Furthermore, the effects of acupuncture on the expression of neurotrophic factors appear earlier than those of antidepressants, suggesting that it may be a useful treatment for depression.

Highlights

In recent years, the number of patients with psychiatric disorders has increased in many countries, including Japan
To analyze the preventive effects of acupuncture on immobility induced by social defeat stress (SDS), we examined the mRNA expression of neurotrophic factors in the brains of SDS mice with ongoing symptoms of depression by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and real-time PCR
Some researchers have demonstrated the effects of electroacupuncture at the GV20 “Bai-Hui” and Ex-HN3 “Yintáng” points, GV20, and Sp-6 “Sanyinjiao” points, and GV20 and EX17 “An-Mian” points in depression animal models (Liu et al, 2007; Zhu et al, 2009; You et al, 2010)

Summary

Introduction

The number of patients with psychiatric disorders has increased in many countries, including Japan. Depression is a mood disorder characterized by disordered affect, Acupuncture for Social Defeat Stress thoughts, cognition, and behavior. Social loss due to depression is widespread as it may cause suicide and obstacles in work and school. Antidepressant therapy is often the primary treatment for depression. Antidepressant therapy may cause unwanted side effects, and its effects are slow (Khawam et al, 2006; Cipriani et al, 2018). About one-third of patients are known to have treatment-resistant depression to multiple antidepressants (Al-Harbi, 2012). Some patients are seeking alternative treatments for depression, such as acupuncture therapy (Qureshi and Al-Bedah, 2013)

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