ArticleBrain sciences2023
Electroacupuncture Alleviates Depressive-like Behavior by Modulating the Expression of P2X7/NLRP3/IL-1β of Prefrontal Cortex and Liver in Rats Exposed to Chronic Unpredictable Mild Stress.
Article in Brain sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Natural antidepressants in neuroimmunomodulation: molecular mechanisms, action targets, and therapeutic potential.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Pooled it
- ATP and major affective disorders: the involvement of P2X receptors in pathophysiology.Purinergic signalling · 2026Review
- Electroacupuncture enhances the effects of escitalopram oxalate on glucocorticoid-inducible genes, inflammation and neurotrophin in depressed patients.Journal of traditional and complementary medicine · 2026Article
- Electroacupuncture alleviates depression and gastrointestinal dysfunction by rebalancing GABAergic activity in the central amygdala.World journal of psychiatry · 2026Article
- TPM-like manipulations exerted an antidepressant effect and regulated amino acid metabolism and GHR/IGF-1 pathway in the liver in adolescent female CUMS rats.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Electroacupuncture in the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: mechanistic insights and therapeutic potential.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- Resveratrol Alleviates Inflammatory Response Through P2X7/NLRP3 Signaling Pathway: In Silico and In Vitro Evidence from Activated Microglia.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Mechanisms of acupuncture in treating depression: a review.Chinese medicine · 2025Review
- Electroacupuncture Regulates Oxidative Stress-Mediated NLRP3/ASC/Caspase-1 Pathway to Inhibit Microglial Activation: Alleviating Neuroinflammation and Depression in IBD.Journal of inflammation research · 2025Article
- Targeting P2X Receptors-Current Progress in Sepsis.International journal of inflammation · 2025Review
- Possible antidepressant mechanism of acupuncture: targeting neuroplasticity.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- Acupuncture may play a key role in anti-depression through various mechanisms in depression.Chinese medicine · 2024Review
- Single-cell RNA-seq reveals the role of YAP1 in prefrontal cortex microglia in depression.BMC neurology · 2024Article
- Major depressive disorder: hypothesis, mechanism, prevention and treatment.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Depression is a complex clinical disorder associated with poor outcomes. Electroacupuncture (EA) has been demonstrated to have an important role in both clinical and pre-clinical depression investigations. Evidence has suggested that the P2X7 receptor (P2X7R), NLRP3, and IL-1β play an important role in depressive disorder. Our study is aimed at exploring the role of EA in alleviating depression-like behaviors in rats. We therefore investigated the effects of EA on the prefrontal cortex and liver of rats subjected to chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) through behavior tests, transmission electron microscopy, Nissl staining, HE staining, immunohistochemistry and Western blotting. Five weeks after exposure to CUMS, Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats showed depression-like behavior. Three weeks after treatment with brilliant blue G (BBG) or EA, depressive symptoms were significantly improved. Liver cells and microglia showed regular morphology and orderly arrangement in the BBG and EA groups compared with the CUMS group. Here we show that EA downregulated P2X7R/NLRP3/IL-1β expression and relieved depression-like behavior. In summary, our findings demonstrated the efficacy of EA in alleviating depression-like behaviors induced by CUMS in rats. This suggests that EA may serve as an adjunctive therapy in clinical practice, and that P2X7R may be a promising target for EA intervention on the liver-brain axis in treatment of depression.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.