Targeted acupuncture reduced stress-related depressive behaviour by restoring leptin responsiveness, reducing inflammation, and reshaping liver fat metabolism.
Researchers induced depression-like symptoms in mice through repeated restraint stress, then treated them with acupuncture at specified therapeutic points or at non-therapeutic points. They assessed behaviour using exploration, swimming, and burying tasks; measured liver injury markers, blood leptin, inflammatory signals, and leptin receptor-positive brain cells; and used lipid profiling to examine changes in liver fats.
Acupuncture at therapeutic points improved depression-like behaviours, lowered a liver injury marker, and produced distinctive liver lipid changes, particularly increasing triglycerides containing more unsaturated fatty acids. It also reduced circulating leptin while increasing leptin receptor-positive cells in brain regions involved in mood regulation, suggesting improved leptin responsiveness. Inflammatory signals decreased across the spleen, blood, and liver, whereas acupuncture at non-therapeutic points did not produce these patterns.
