Anticonvulsion effect of acupuncture might be related to the decrease of neuronal and inducible nitric oxide synthases

Abstract

To measure the levels of hippocampal nitric oxide synthase isoforms in penicillin induced epilepsy and to test the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on changes of these levels during epilepsy, we injected penicillin into rat hippocampus to make an epilepsy model and performed electroacupuncture treatment on "Feng Fu" (DU 16) and "Jin Suo" (DU 8) points in Wistar rats. Nitric oxide synthase (NOS) mRNA levels of rat hippocampus were determined by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) mRNA markedly increased (p<0.01) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) mRNA significantly emerged during epilepsy, whereas no significant change in epithelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) mRNA was observed. EA inhibited the epilepsy and decreased nNOS (p<0.01) and iNOS (p<0.01) correspondingly but had no effect on the amount of eNOS mRNA. The data suggest that penicillin-induced epilepsy caused an increase in nNOS and iNOS, and the EA anticonvulsant effect might be related to the decrease of these nitric oxide synthases.