New thoughts about study on cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway in mediating delaying effect of electroacupuncture on myocardial remodeling of chronic hypertension

Abstract

Chronic hypertension evoked aberrant myocardial remodeling is the main reason for progressive death from heart failure. It is of great clinical significance to find effective prevention and treatment methods to block this pathological process. It has been shown that imbalance of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) induced by chronic hypertension, i.e., hyper-excitation of sympathetic nerve system and suppression of parasympathetic (vagal) nerve system, activates immune cells-mediated inflammatory responses, and exacerbates the pathological remodeling of cardiac tissue. Except the negative inotropic outcomes, excitation of vagal nerves also has an anti-inflammatory effect which is mediated by activating the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway (CAIP). Previous studies showed that electroacupuncture (EA) could exert anti-hypertensive and systematic anti-inflammatory effects by increasing vagal activity. In addition, preliminary study from our lab demonstrated that EA was able to alleviate the pathological progress from hypertension to cardiac hypertrophy. However, the potential role of CAIP in restoring hypertension induced aberrant myocardial remodeling is still unknown. Herein, based on the alteration of ANS function in hypertension and EA's impact on vagal activity, we propose novel research ideas that EA could attenuate the pathological process of hypertension induced abnormal myocardial remodeling via activating CAIP.