Anales RANF

P.75 P2X7R PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN ANTIDEPRESSANT EFFECT OF TAVNS Yu Wang 1 , Shaoyuan Li 1 , Yue Zhang 1 , Yueting Liu 2 , Peijing Rong 1 1 . Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China; 2 . School of Acupuncture- Moxibustion and Tuina, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China. Background: Depression is a common affective disorder. As a new method of combining acupuncture and neuromodulation technology, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is currently used in the treatment of many diseases. We've previously confirmed through clinical trials that taVNS can be effective in treating depression, and the data from animal experiments suggest that the antidepressant mechanism is associated with inflammation and purine receptor receptors in the brain. This study was designed to assess the effectiveness of taVNS on depressive-like behavior caused by chronic restraint stress (CRS) in rats, and explore its potential mechanism of interaction between inflammation and purine receptor. Material and methods: 18 male SD rats were equally divided into control group ， model group and model+taVNS group, used open-feld test, sucrose preference test and forced swimming test to ascertain whether taVNS a ff ects CRS induced depression-like behaviors of rats, and the expression of P2X7R, NLRP3 and NF- κB in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex was detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Real-time Q-PCR). Results: The data showed that taVNS can significantly reverse stress-induced Depression-like behavior in rats, and the antidepressant effect of taVNS was accompanied by markedly decreased the mRNA expression of P2X7R, NLRP3 and NF- κB in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (p < 0.05). Conclusions: taVNS may play an antidepressant role by reducing inflammation in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, and this anti-inflammatory effect may be negatively correlated with the mRNA expression of P2X7R. Keywords: taVNS, depression, inflammation, purine receptor, rats