The effect of acupuncture stimulation on the blood fluidity in rats: study 3

Abstract

In Japanese Oriental medicine, the concept of "oketsu" is one of the most important pathological state in diagnosis. Oketsu is considered as a stagnation of blood flow and acupuncture stimulation is often used the therapy of oketsu. However, the basic studies to elucidate the mechanism of acupuncture stimulation on blood fluidity were very few. We demonstrated that some stressors impaired blood fluidity but acupuncture stimulation (1Hz, 1 hr) increased blood fluidity in rats using MC-FAN method. We also reported the effects of acupuncture stimulation on blood fluidity differ depending on acupuncture points. It is known that opioid system is enralled in acupuncture analgesia. In this study we tested the effects of shorter stimulation period, 15 min, of acupuncture stimulation and the effect of naloxone in blood fluidity. Acupuncture stimulations were applied to ZuSanli(S36), and applied at intensity to cause light muscle twitch. The blood was collected from inferior vena cava under pentobarbital anesthesia. Acupuncture stimulation for 15 min augmented blood fluidity but naloxone did not affect the augmented blood fluidity induced by acupuncture stimulation. These results indicate that the effects of acupuncture stimulation will be achieved in a short time on blood fluidity and the effect may be caused through other mechanism which causes acupuncture analgesic. [J Physiol Sci. 2007;57 Suppl:S216]