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Electro-Acupuncture Pretreatment Ameliorates Anesthesia and Surgery-Induced Cognitive Dysfunction Via Inhibiting Mitochondrial Injury and nEuroapoptosis in Aged Rats

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Abstract

Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) remains one of the most common complications following anesthesia and surgery (AS) in the elderly population. Calcium-mediated mitochondrial injury has been proved to induce cognitive impairment in a variety of neurologic diseases. In the current study we determined whether electro-acupuncture (EA) pretreatment ameliorated AS-induced POCD in aged rats, as well as the underlying mechanism. Eighty SD rats (18 months, male) were randomly assigned into four groups (n = 20): C, C + EA, POCD and EA + POCD. Rats in Group POCD and EA + POCD were subjected to exploratory laparotomy under sevoflurane anesthesia. Rats of Group C + EA and EA + POCD received a 5-day EA stimulation at Hegu, Neiguan and Zusanli acupoints before AS. At 3rd day after AS, open field test along with Morris water maze test were employed to examine the cognitive function of aged rats. Then hippocampal tissues were stripped and hippocampal neuronal amount, expression level of cleaved caspase-9 level, cytochrome c (Cyt C), cleaved caspase-3 level, Bcl-2, Bax, ROS expression level, apoptosis rate, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), cytosolic calcium concentration ([Ca2+]c), opening level of mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) and ultrastructure of hippocampal neurons were detected separately. EA pretreatment inhibited AS-induced cognitive dysfunction. Furthermore, EA pretreatment decreased level of [Ca2+]c, MMP, mPTP, ROS and hippocampal mitochondrial disruption and enhanced neuronal amount. In addition, EA pretreatment notably reduced the AS-induced increased level of cleaved caspase-9, cleaved caspase-3 and expression of Cyt c, Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, as well as neuronal apoptosis rate in aged rats. EA pretreatment ameliorates AS-induced POCD in aged rats, the potential mechanism may be associated with inhibiting calcium overload and ameliorating mitochondrial injury and neuroapoptosis in hippocampal neurons.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the members of the Experimental Centre for Teaching of Hebei Medical University for their great help and support.

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81771134), Hebei Provincial government funded the specialty capacity building and specialty leader training program and Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (H2018206305).

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Author notes

  1. Qiujun Wang

    Present address: Department of Anesthesiology, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, No.139 Ziqiang Road, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, China

  2. Qi Zhang and Yanan Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, No.139 Ziqiang Road, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, China

    Qi Zhang, Yanan Li, Chunping Yin & Jiaxu Yu

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, Hebei Children’s Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Hebei, China

    Qi Zhang

  3. Experimental Centre for Teaching of Hebei Medical University, Hebei, China

    Juan Zhao

  4. School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hebei Medical University, Hebei, China

    Lirong Yan

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  1. Qi Zhang
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Contributions

QZ Conceptualization and writing original draft, YNL Data curation and original draft review, CPY Data curation and formal analysis, JXY and LRY Data curation and software, JZ Resources, QJW Funding acquisition and original draft review.

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Correspondence to Qiujun Wang.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical Approval

The experimental design and scheme have been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University [A2017-026–1].

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Zhang, Q., Li, Y., Yin, C. et al. Electro-Acupuncture Pretreatment Ameliorates Anesthesia and Surgery-Induced Cognitive Dysfunction Via Inhibiting Mitochondrial Injury and nEuroapoptosis in Aged Rats. Neurochem Res 47, 1751–1764 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-022-03567-3

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