Effects of abdominal massage on the structure and function of affective loop in rats with generalized anxiety disorder / 国际生物医学工程杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To observe the structural and functional changes of each nucleus group in generalized anxiety disorder(GAD) rat models before and after the massage therapy, and to explore the central regulating mechanism of the massage therapy in GAD.Methods:60 Wistar male rats were randomly divided into blank group, model group and abdominal rubbing group, 20 rats for each group. GAD rat models were established by chronic emotional stress, and the models were evaluated by the elevated cross maze experiment. In the abdominal rubbing group, the GAD rats were treated with abdominal rubbing once a day for 10 min for 14 days. In the control group, the GAD rats were only bound to the experimental platform once a day for 10 min for 14 days. Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) retrograde tracking marker method was used to detect the changes of the structure of each nuclear cluster in the affective loop of the GAD rats in each group. The liquid-mass spectrometry quantitative analysis was used to determine the relative concentrations of N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), glutamic acid, choline and creatine in nuclear cluster of the GAD rats in each group.Results:Compared with the blank group, the HRP labeled cells in the rats of model group were less expressed and the activity of the emotional circuit in the brain was weak. The NAA/creatine ratio in the left hippocampal tissue of the rats in the model group was significantly increased than that of the blank group(0.94±0.08 vs 0.79±0.10, P<0.05), the glutamic acid/creatine ratio in the right hippocampal tissue was significantly decreased (0.95±0.10 vs 1.12±0.13, P<0.01), and the NAA/creatine andglutamic and acid/creatineratios in the left cortical tissue were all significantly decreased (1.04±0.05 vs 1.41±0.23, and 1.21±0.04 vs 1.57±0.11, all P<0.01). Compared with the model group, the hippocampal tissues of the GAD rats in the abdominal rubbing group had a large number of HRP aggregation and spread to the surrounding tissues, the NAA/creatine and glutamic acid/creatine ratios in the left hippocampal tissue of the abdominal rubbing group were significantly decreased (0.74±0.21 vs 0.94±0.09 and 0.92±0.20 vs 1.21±0.12, all P<0.01). The differences between the model group and the abdominal rubbing group in the ratio of glutamic acid/creatine in the right hippocampal tissue (1.01±0.23 vs 0.95±0.10), the ratio of NAA/creatine in the left cortical tissue (1.12±0.09 vs 1.04±0.05), and the ratio of glutamic acid/creatine in the left cortical tissue (1.22±0.12 vs 1.21±0.04) were not statistically significant ( P>0.05). Conclusions:Abdominal rubbing can effectively enhance the activity of affective loop and improve the relative concentration of neuron metabolites in hippocampal and cortical tissues in the affective loop, suggesting that the mechanism of GAD treatment by abdominal rubbing may be closely related to the structure and function of regulating affective loop.