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Transcutaneous Electrical Acupoint Stimulation in Early Life Changes Synaptic Plasticity and Improves Symptoms in a Valproic Acid-Induced Rat Model of Autism
- Source :
- Neural Plasticity, Vol 2020 (2020), Neural Plasticity
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Hindawi Limited, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by social behavior deficit in childhood without satisfactory medical intervention. Transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) is a noninvasive technique derived from acupuncture and has been shown to have similar therapeutic effects in many diseases. Valproic acid- (VPA-) induced ASD is a known model of ASD in rats. The therapeutic efficacy of TEAS was evaluated in the VPA model of ASD in the present study. The offspring of a VPA-treated rat received TEAS in the early life stage followed by a series of examinations conducted in their adolescence. The results show that following TEAS treatment in early life, the social and cognitive ability in adolescence of the offspring of a VPA rat were significantly improved. In addition, the abnormal pain threshold was significantly corrected. Additional studies demonstrated that the dendritic spine density of the primary sensory cortex was decreased with Golgi staining. Results of the transcriptomic study showed that expression of some transcription factors such as the neurotrophic factor were downregulated in the hypothalamus of the VPA model of ASD. The reduced gene expression was reversed following TEAS. These results suggest that TEAS in the early life stage may mitigate disorders of social and recognition ability and normalize the pain threshold of the ASD rat model. The mechanism involved may be related to improvement of synaptic plasticity.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Article Subject
Offspring
Acupuncture Therapy
Stimulation
Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Neurotrophic factors
Internal medicine
Threshold of pain
medicine
Animals
Autistic Disorder
Rats, Wistar
030304 developmental biology
0303 health sciences
Valproic Acid
Neuronal Plasticity
business.industry
Gene Expression Profiling
Age Factors
medicine.disease
Rats
Developmental disorder
Disease Models, Animal
Endocrinology
Neurology
Synaptic plasticity
Autism
Female
lipids (amino acids, peptides, and proteins)
Neurology (clinical)
Vocalization, Animal
business
Acupuncture Points
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
medicine.drug
Research Article
RC321-571
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 16875443 and 20905904
- Volume :
- 2020
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Neural Plasticity
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e9d167d1f45170893488f6dea703b9c5