Electroacupuncture attenuates surgical pain-induced delirium-like behavior. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Electroacupuncture attenuates surgical pain-induced delirium-like behavior in miceremodeling gut microbiota and dendritic spine.
Front Immunol. 2022 ;13:955581. Epub 2022 Aug 8. PMID: 36003380
Liuyue Yang
Surgical pain is associated with delirium in patients, and acupuncture can treat pain. However, whether electroacupuncture can attenuate the surgical pain-associated deliriumthe gut-brain axis remains unknown. Leveraging a mouse model of foot incision-induced surgical pain and delirium-like behavior, we found that electroacupuncture stimulation at specific acupoints (e.g., DU20+KI1) attenuated both surgical pain and delirium-like behavior in mice. Mechanistically, mice with incision-induced surgical pain and delirium-like behavior showed gut microbiota imbalance, microglia activation in the spinal cord, somatosensory cortex, and hippocampus, as well as an enhanced dendritic spine elimination in cortex revealed by two-photon imaging. The electroacupuncture regimen that alleviated surgical pain and delirium-like behavior in mice also effectively restored the gut microbiota balance, prevented the microglia activation, and reversed the dendritic spine elimination. These data demonstrated a potentially important gut-brain interactive mechanism underlying the surgical pain-induced delirium in mice. Pending further studies, these findings revealed a possible therapeutic approach in preventing and/or treating postoperative delirium by using perioperative electroacupuncture stimulation in patients.