To elucidate the mechanisms of acupuncture treatment for Alzheimer's disease(AD)

we injected the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) intraperitoneally to 21

22 month old (aged) Spraque-Dawley (SD) rats to mimic the inflammatory state in the AD brains. The RT-PCR technique was used to observe the changes of expression of interleukin IL-1β and IL-6 mRNA in rat brain and pituitary following LPS injection and acupuncture treatments. The results have shown that the expression of IL-1β and IL-6 mRNA in aged rat cortex

cerebellum and pituitary was higher when compared with 4 month old(young) rats and repeated acupuncture could attenuate the expression in aged rats. The results indicated that acupuncture inhibits the gene expression of cytokines in the aged rat brain and pituitary

it may be responsible for the acupuncture treatment of AD and other neurodegenerative diseases.