Transcutaneous Electrical Acupoint Stimulation Ameliorates Cognitive Function through PINK1/Parkin Mediated Mitophagy in VD Rats

Ziwei Hu; Tianshan Wen; Ke Hu; Rui Wang; Xinda Su; Wei Ouyang; Junjie Zhou; Youliang Wen

doi:10.1155/2022/2810794

Transcutaneous Electrical Acupoint Stimulation Ameliorates Cognitive Function through PINK1/Parkin Mediated Mitophagy in VD Rats

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2022 Jun 3:2022:2810794. doi: 10.1155/2022/2810794. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ziwei Hu^{1

2}, Tianshan Wen³, Ke Hu^{1

2}, Rui Wang^{1

2}, Xinda Su^{1

2}, Wei Ouyang⁴, Junjie Zhou^{1

2

5

6}, Youliang Wen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Rehabilitation Medicine, Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, Jiangxi 341000, China.
² Research Center of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, Jiangxi 341000, China.
³ Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510000, China.
⁴ College of Physical Education and Health Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang 321004, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases, Ministry of Education, Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, Jiangxi 341000, China.
⁶ Ganzhou Key Laboratory of Rehabilitation Medicine, Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, Jiangxi 341000, China.

Abstract

In this study, we investigated whether transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) could improve cognitive function in VD rats by regulating PINK1/Parkin-mediated mitophagy. VD rat model was prepared by modified 2-vessel occlusion (2-VO) and randomly divided into four groups: Sham group (Sham), Model group (Model), TEAS group (TEAS), and TEAS + 3-MA group (T +3 -MA). In the T +3 -MA group, autophagy inhibitor (3-MA) was injected into the lateral ventricle. After modeling, Y maze (YM), new object recognition test (NORT), Morris water maze (MWM), immunofluorescence, and Western blot were used to observe the effects of TEAS on VD rats. Behavioral experiments revealed that TEAS effectively improved the learning and memory ability of VD rats. Immunofluorescence results showed that TEAS could upregulate LC3 expression. Western blot results showed that TEAS upregulated the expression of PINK1, Parkin, and LC3-II, and downregulated the expression of LC3-I and p62 in VD rats. T +3 -MA group shows the opposite trend to TEAS group. This study demonstrates that TEAS ameliorates cognitive function through PINK1/Parkin-mediated mitophagy in VD rats.