Cranial manipulation modulates cholinergic pathway gene expression in an animal model of age-related cognitive decline

In this study, we examine the effect of cranial osteopathic manipulation (COM) on gene expression, in an animal model for age-related cognitive decline (aged rats). We found that COM significantly affected the expression of 36 genes in the neuronal pathway (False Discovery Rate (FDR) < 0.004). The top five neuronal genes with the largest fold-change (Slc5a7, Chat, Slc18a3, Adcy5 and Cacna2d2, >2-fold change, FDR<0.004) are part of the cholinergic neurotransmission mechanism, which is known to affect cognitive function. Overall design: Compare gene expression from RNA sequencing of tissue samples from prefrontal cortex of aged rats that have undergone cranial osteopathic manipulation to aged rats that did not receive the treatment