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Acupuncture Alleviates the Affective Dimension of Pain in a Rat Model of Inflammatory Hyperalgesia

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Abstract

Although studies demonstrate that electroacupuncture (EA) alleviates the sensory dimension of pain, they have not addressed EA’s effect on the affective dimension. An inflammatory pain rat model, produced by a complete Freund adjuvant (CFA) injection into the hind paw, was combined with a conditioned place avoidance test to determine EA’s effects and its underpinning mechanism on the affective dimension of pain. CFA-injected rats showed place aversion, i.e. the affective dimension of pain, by spending less time in a pain-paired compartment after conditioning than before, while saline-injected rats did not. CFA rats given EA treatment at GB30 before a post-conditioning test showed no aversion to the pain-paired compartment, indicating that EA inhibited the affective response. Intra-rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) administration of a κ-, but not μ-opioid receptor antagonist, blocked EA action. These data demonstrate that EA activates opioid receptors in the rACC to inhibit the affective dimension of pain.

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Acknowledgments

This publication was made possible by grant number R21AT005474-01 and P01AT002605 from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health. We would like to thank Dr. Lyn Lowry for her editorial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Integrative Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, 685 W. Baltimore Street, MSTF Rm 8-22, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Yu Zhang, Xianze Meng, Aihui Li, Jiajia Xin, Brian M. Berman, Lixing Lao & Rui-Xin Zhang

  2. Department of Neurobiology, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, 030001, Shanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Yu Zhang

  3. Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200001, People’s Republic of China

    Xianze Meng

  4. Division of Biostatistics, University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Ming Tan

  5. Department of Neural and Pain Sciences, Dental School, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Ke Ren

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  1. Yu Zhang
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  2. Xianze Meng
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  3. Aihui Li
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  7. Ming Tan
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  8. Ke Ren
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  9. Rui-Xin Zhang
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Correspondence to Rui-Xin Zhang.

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Zhang, Y., Meng, X., Li, A. et al. Acupuncture Alleviates the Affective Dimension of Pain in a Rat Model of Inflammatory Hyperalgesia. Neurochem Res 36, 2104–2110 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-011-0534-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-011-0534-y

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