Objective: To observe changes of mitochondrial membrane potential and neuronal apoptosis and the effect of moxibustion on them in aged rats.Methods: According to the age(months)

45 Wistar rats were evenly divided into young(2-3 m) group

aged(15 m) group and moxibustion(rats with age of 15 m) group.Moxibustion was applied to "Baihui"(GV 20) and "Shenshu"(BL 23) for 8 min every acupoint

once daily

40 sessions altogether.After the treatment

the rats were killed rapidly by decapitation for collecting hippocampus tissue and processing into homogenate and cell suspension(10

7

cells/mL).The cell suspension(100 μL/tube) was added separately with proidium iodide and rhodamine-123(dyes)

followed by detecting the number of apoptosis and mitochondrial membrane potentials with a flow cytometer.Results: The apoptosis rates of young rat group

aged rat group and moxibustion group were 5.77±0.08

24.17±5.84

and 9.42±1.76 separately

while their percents of membrane potentials were 15.71±2.56

37.99±6.17 and 20.11±3.92 respectively.The values of these two indexes of aged rat group were significantly higher than those of young rat group and moxibustion group(P

<

0.01)

while no significant differences were found between moxibustion group and young rat group in these two indexes(P

>

0.05)

showing that moxibustion could significantly lower hippocampal apoptosis and membrane potentials.Conclusion: Moxibustion can check changes of mitochondrial membrane potentials and reduce the number of neuronal apoptosis of hippocampus

that may be responsible for the efficacy of moxibustion in delaying aging.