초록
The present study was designed to investigate the effect of different stimulation-duration of high frequency electroacupuncturet(EA) treatment on the neuronal activities in the spinal cord and brainstem using Fos immunohistochemical technique. Three different stimulus-duration was used in this experiment : 30minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours. The summerized results were summerized as follow : 1. The number of Fos expression was significantly increased in the spinal cord dorsal horn depending upon the increase of stimulus-duration (P<0.05). Otherwise, there was no significant difference between 30 minutes EA treated group and anesthetic control. 2. High frequency EA biphasic stimulation significantly enhanced the Fos expression in the DR, middle and rostral portion of PAG LD, and caudal PAG LV after 1 hour and 2 hours treatment. The number of Fos immunoreactive neuron in the brainstem was increased accorcting to the length of stimulus-duration. Those results indicate that at least 1 hour EA treatment was necessary to increase the neuronal activities in the spinal cord and brainstem. Those basic data from this study can be applied to establish the effective treatment of EA for pain control in the clinical field.