Electro-acupuncture attenuates stress-induced defecation in rats with chronic visceral hypersensitivity via serotonergic pathway

Acupuncture at Both ST25 and ST37 Improves the Pain Threshold of Chronic Visceral Hypersensitivity Rats

“…Other studies [12][13][14] demonstrated the efficacy of electro-acupuncture (EA) in relieving chronic visceral hypersensitivity (CVH) in postnatal development of rats [15]. The chosen acupoints, however, varied in those studies as shown in Table 1.…”

“…It is mainly released from enterochromaffin cells and is regulated by the 5-HT3 receptor (5-HT3R), and the 5-HT4 receptor (5-HT4R), which induce visceral pain in the enteric nervous system [18]. Tian et al [13] reported that EA could regulate the expression of 5-HT and 5-HT4R, assayed semiquantitatively by immunohistochemistry. Therefore, we also investigated the effect of EA at both ST25 and ST37 on 5-HT, 5-HT3R and 5-HT4R, assayed quantitatively by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).…”

Acupuncture in Chronic Non-Responding Anxiety/Depression Patients: A Case Series

“…6 It has been shown that electro-acupuncture attenuates stress-induced defecation in rats with chronic visceral hypersensitivity via serotonergic pathway and modulate the availability of 5-hydroxytryptamine to restore the balance between 5-hydroxytryptamine synthesis and removal. 7 Further, it has been demonstrated that five weeks of acupuncture treatment (as in the Reinthal et al study) was associated with a significant nocturnal increase in endogenous melatonin secretion and significant improvements in polysomnographic measures of sleep onset latency, arousal index, total sleep time and sleep efficiency. 8 It can be assumed that acupuncture relieves infantile colic symptoms by regulating the serotonin and melatonin secretions and thereby the circadian rhythm.…”

Anti-Stress Effects of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) on Colonic Motility in Rats

“…In a rat IBS model, EA attenuates visceral hypersensitivity, mast cell activation and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP)/ substance P (SP) secretion [41]. EA attenuates stressinduced defecation via the serotonergic pathway in rats [42].…”