Electroacupuncture restores learning, memory loss

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CM NEWS - Electroacupuncture has been demonstrated in the lab to be able to significantly restore learning and memory impairment induced by diabetes and cerebral ischemia.

What is cerebral ischemia? Cerebral ischemia is the decreased supply of blood to the brain or part of the brain caused by blockage or obstruction of the supplying blood vessels.

The study was done by the Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion of Beijing’s China Academy of Chinese Medical Science.

Previous investigations have demonstrated that electroacupunctural stimulation can ameliorate primary and secondary symptoms such as peripheral neuropathy and diabetic encephalopathy in diabetic rats.

In this study, the Chinese researchers investigated whether electroacupuncture could improve learning and memory which was typically impaired in diabetic rats with cerebral ischemia.

After electroacupuncture treatment, the long-term potentiation (LTP) impaired by both diabetes and cerebral ischemia was restored significantly.

What is LTP? In neuroscience, long-term potentiation (LTP) is the long-lasting improvement in communication between two neurons that results from stimulating them simultaneously.

These results suggest that electroacupuncture can ameliorate learning and memory capacity impaired by hyperglycemia and ischemia. LTP plays a very important role in this beneficial effect.

[Neuroscience Volume 443, Issue 3, 10 October 2008, Pages 193-198]

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