Combined therapy of acupuncture and neural stem cell transplantation in immature rats with cerebral palsy / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Both acupuncture and neural stem cel therapy have good achievements in the treatment of cerebral palsy, but there are few reports about their combined therapy. OBJECTIVE:To observe the therapeutic effect of combined therapy of acupuncture and neural stem cel transplantation on cerebral palsy rats and to explore the relevant mechanism of action. METHODS: Cerebral palsy models were built in newborn rats, and then, the model rats were subjected to acupuncture, neural stem cel transplantation and their combination, respectively. Meanwhile, normal control group and model group were set up. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Compared with the other groups, in the combined therapy group, the behavior scores of cerebral palsy rats improved significantly (P < 0.05), the number of nerve cels and Bcl-2 protein expression were increased significantly (P < 0.05), and the number of apoptotic nerve cels and Bax protein expression were decreased significantly (P < 0.05). Additionaly, there were no significant differences in these indicators among the model, acupuncture and neural stem cel transplantation groups. These findings indicate that the combined therapy of acupuncture and neural stem cel therapy can obviously improve learning and memory ability of cerebral palsy rats and reduce neuronal apoptosis, which is probably associated with down-regulation of Bax protein and up-regulation of Bcl-2 protein.