Transcript Profiling of Arcuate Nucleus in Response to Electroacupuncture on Rats

The electroacupuncture-induced analgesic effect has been used widely to alleviate diverse pains. However, significant individual variations in analgesic effect of EA for both experiments and clinics were reported. According to the sensitivity of the analgesic response to EA stimulation, the subjects could be categorized into high responders (HR) and non responders (NR). However, the molecular mechanism of individual variability in the analgesic response to acupuncture stimulation is still uncertain. This study aims to investigate the potential gene expression in arcuate nucleus induced by 2Hz/100Hz electroacupuncture in HR and NR rats. Rats were given 2Hz or 100Hz electroacupuncture for 30 min and using cDNA microarrays to compare different gene expression in arcuate nucleus.