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Research Paper|Volume 15, Issue 20|pp 11227—11243

Electroacupuncture pretreatment protects against anesthesia/surgery-induced cognitive decline by activating CREB via the ERK/MAPK pathway in the hippocampal CA1 region in aged rats

Hongjie Huang1, Yanan Li1, Xupeng Wang1, Qi Zhang2, Juan Zhao3, Qiujun Wang1
  • 1Department of Anesthesiology, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Hebei 050051, China
  • 2Department of Anesthesiology, Hebei Children’s Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Hebei 050031, China
  • 3Experimental Teaching Center, Hebei Medical University, Hebei 050011, China
* Equal contribution
Received: June 16, 2023Accepted: September 25, 2023Published: October 19, 2023
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205124

Copyright: © 2023 Huang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Effective preventive measures against postoperative cognitive dysfunction in older adults are urgently needed. In this study, we investigated the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on anesthesia and surgery-induced cognitive decline in aged rats by RNA-seq analysis, behavioral testing, Golgi-Cox staining, dendritic spine analysis, immunofluorescence assay and western blot analysis. EA ameliorated anesthesia and surgery induced-cognitive decline. RNA-seq analysis identified numerous differentially-expressed genes, including 353 upregulated genes and 563 downregulated genes, after pretreatment with EA in aged rats with postoperative cognitive dysfunction. To examine the role of CREB in EA, we injected adeno-associated virus (AAV) into the CA1 region of the hippocampus bilaterally into the aged rats to downregulate the transcription factor. EA improved synaptic plasticity, structurally and functionally, by activating the MAPK/ERK/CREB signaling pathway in aged rats. Together, our findings suggest that EA protects against anesthesia and surgery-induced cognitive decline in aged rats by activating the MAPK/ERK/CREB signaling pathway and enhancing hippocampal synaptic plasticity.