A combination of depression and liver Qi stagnation and spleen deficiency syndrome using a rat model

Abstract

A syndrome (Zheng in Chinese) plays a critical role in disease identification, diagnosis, and treatment in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Clinically, the liver Qi stagnation and spleen deficiency syndrome (LQSSDS) is one of the most common syndrome patterns. Over the past few decades, several animal models have been developed to understand the potential mechanisms of LQSSDS, but until now, simulation of the syndrome is still unclear. Recently, several studies have confirmed that an animal model combining a disease and a syndrome is appropriate for simulating TCM syndromes. Overlapping previous studies have reported that depression is highly associated with LQSSDS; hence, we attempted to develop a rat model combining depression and LQSSDS. We exposed the rats to different durations of chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS). Subsequently, the evaluation indicators at macrolevel consisted of behavioral tests including open field test, sucrose preference test, and forced swim test, food intake, body weight, white adipose tissue, fecal water content, visceral hypersensitivity, and small bowel transit, and the evaluation indicators at microlevel included changes of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. Serum D‐xylose absorption was used to comprehensively confirm and assess whether the model was successful during the CUMS‐induced process. The results showed that rats exposed to 6‐week CUMS procedure exhibited significantly similar traits to the phenotypes of LQSSDS and depression. This study provided a new rat model for the LQSSDS and could potentially lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of LQSSDS and the development of new drugs for this syndrome.

Integrating Pharmacology and Gut Microbiota Analysis to Explore the Mechanism of Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium Against Reserpine-Induced Spleen Deficiency in Rats

“…Reported studies have observed that patients with spleen deficiency usually showed the symptoms of poor digestion and absorption (Chung et al, 2016). In this study, the activity of amylase and the concentration of D-xylose in serum were used to reflect the digestion and absorption of nutrients in rats (Gao et al, 2009;Li et al, 2020). As shown in Figure 2, the level of D-xylose and the activity of amylase in model group were significantly lower than that in control and CRP group (p < 0.01), suggesting that reserpine treatment could significantly reduce the digestion and absorption in rats while CRP administration could effectively reverse these changes.…”

Acupuncture inhibits NLRP3 inflammasome activation in the prefrontal cortex of a chronic stress rat model of depression

“…CUMS is known to be a key risk factor for depression (Antoniuk et al, 2019;Willner, 2017). Therefore, the CUMS animal model has been extensively used for depression study, in which different kinds of unpredictable mild stressors are applied to induce depressive-like behaviors (Li et al, 2020;Willner, 2017). Depressive patients exhibit the symptom of anhedonia (loss of interest or pleasure) and psychomotor retardation/agitation (Sarkisova & van Luijtelaar, 2011).…”

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“…Orexin (hypocretin) is a neuropeptide that, when downregulated, is associated with depressive syndromes. The other paper created a rat model to assess consequences of depression combined with a common TCM syndrome called liver Qi stagnation and spleen deficiency syndrome (Li et al, 2020). The syndrome is related to chronic depression that leads to dysfunction of the liver and spleen.…”