There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that electroacupuncture (EA)
at acupoint St36 induces antinociception by activation of the L-arg/NO/cGMP pathway.
Nociception was produced by thermal stimuli applied to the face of Wistar rats and
latency was measured by face withdrawal. Electric stimulation of acupoint St36 for
20 min induced antinociception in this model, which was maintained for 150 min. For
comparison, a so-called dry needle group (DN) was used, which received needling at
the same point without stimulation. The antinociception obtained by stimulation of
acupoint St36 was only achieved when high frequency (100 Hz) was used, whereas low
frequencies (5 and 30 Hz) were not capable of achieving this effect. Subcutaneous
administration of both inhibitors of NO synthase (N-nitro-L-arginine) and guanylyl
cyclase (ODQ) and intraperitoneal administration of specific antagonists of neuronal
NO synthase (L-NNA) and inductible NO synthase (aminoguanidine) antagonized the antinociception
induced by St36 stimulation. The results of this paper suggest that stimulation of
acupoint St36 at high frequency induces antinociception, which seems to be related
to L-arg/NO/cGMP pathway activation.