Acupuncture Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Acupuncture, including details on alternative medicine, uses, benefits, treatment, chinese medicine.

Analgesic Effect of Electro-Acupuncture on Complete Freund's Adjuvant Induced Inflammatory Pain in Mice: A Model of Anti-Pain Treatment by Acupuncture in Mice.

Li WM, Cui KM, Li N, Gu QB, Schwarz W, Ding GH, Wu GC

Department of Integrative Medicine, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China. wmli@shmu.edu.cn.

Electro-acupuncture (EA) was applied bilaterally to the acupoints of Zu-san-li (ST-36) and Kun-lun (BL-60) in the hind-limbs of mice. Therapeutic effect of EA on inflammatory pain induced by an ipsilateral injection of complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) into the right paw of the mouse was investigated in this study. The time of paw-withdrawal latency (PWL) was used as an indicator for judging intensity of the pain induced by the CFA injection. EA effects were divided into immediate (PWL tests within 2 h after EA treatment) and cumulative (PWL tests during and after repetitive EA treatment for 3 weeks) effects. As immediate effects, PWL was significantly shortened in the CFA injected paw, but was again prolonged 20 min after an EA treatment and lasted until 30 min. As cumulative effects, PWL was significantly shortened in the CFA injected paw but recovered from 2nd to 8th day during repetitive EA treatments. No such effects could be observed after sham EA treatment which resulted in similar behavior as in untreated animals. These results demonstrate that the CFA-induced inflammatory pain in mice is an ideal model system for the investigation of EA effects and may serve as a valuable reference for the clinical treatment of inflammatory pain in human beings. In addition, the mouse pain model opens the possibility to apply the investigation also to transgenic mice.

Published 16 December 2005 in Jpn J Physiol.
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