[Effect of electroacupuncture on apoptosis of hippocampus tissue in mice with vascular dementia]

To observe the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on hippocampal apoptosis and learning-memory ability in vascular dementia (VD) mice so as to investigate its underlying mechanism in the treatment of VD patients.Kunming mice were randomly divided into sham-operation (sham, n = 13), model (n = 15), EA (n = 16) and Nimodipine (intragastric gavage, 30 mg/kg for 15 days, n = 15) groups. VD model was duplicated by occlusion of bilateral carotid arteries and reperfusion. EA (2-80 Hz, 2 mA) was applied to "Dazhui" (GV 14), "Baihui" (GV 20), "Geshu" (BL 17) and "Zusanli" (ST 36) for 10 min, once daily for 15 days. Step-down and step-up tests were performed to assess the animal's memory and learning abilities separately; and the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-nick end-labeling (TUNEL) method was used to display the apoptotic cells of the hippocampus tissue.In comparison with sham group, the animals' reaction time upon electric shock stimulation, both step-up and step-down error times, and hippocampal apoptosis number in model, EA and Nimodipine groups increased significantly (P0.01), while the reaction latency upon electric shock of model, EA and Nimodipine groups decreased significantly (P0.01). Compared with model group, the reaction time, both step-up and step-down error times and hippocampal apoptosis number of both EA and Nimodipine groups decreased significantly (P0.05, P0.01); while the reaction latency of EA and Nimodipine groups increased considerably (P0.01). Comparison between EA and Nimodipine groups showed that the reaction latency of EA group was obviously longer than that of the later group (P0.01), and the step-down error times of EA group was markedly lower than that of Nimodipine group (P0.05). No significant differences were found between these two groups in other indexes (P0.05).EA can ameliorate VD mice's learning-memory ability, which may be closely related to its effect in reducing hippocampal apoptosis.