{"doi":"10.17615/fn39-r769","title":"Combined treatment with acupuncture reduces effective dose and alleviates adverse effect of l-dopa by normalizing Parkinson's disease-induced neurochemical imbalance","abstract":"This study first showed the behavioural benefits of novel combination therapy of l-dopa with acupuncture on Parkinson’s disease, and its underlying mechanisms within basal ganglia. The previous study reported that acupuncture may improve the motor function of a Parkinson’s disease (PD) mouse model by increasing the dopamine efflux and turnover ratio of dopamine. Hence, we hypothesised that combining l-dopa with acupuncture would have a behavioural benefit for those with PD. We performed unilateral injections of 6-OHDA into the striatum of C57Bl/6 mice to model hemi-Parkinsonian attributes. To test motor function and dyskinetic anomalies, we examined cylinder behaviour and abnormal involuntary movement (AIM), respectively. We found that (1) a 50% reduced dose of l-dopa (7.5 mg/kg) combined with acupuncture showed an improvement in motor function that was comparable to mice given the standard dose of l-dopa treatment (15 mg/kg) only, and that (2) the combination treatment (l-dopa +acupuncture) was significantly superior in reducing AIM scores when equivalent doses of l-dopa were used. The combination treatment also significantly reduces the abnormal increase of GABA contents in the substantia nigra compared to the standard l-dopa treatment. Furthermore, abnormal expression of FosB, the immediate early gene of l-dopa induced dyskinesia (LID), was mitigated in the striatum by the combination treatment. All of these results indicate that acupuncture enhances the benefits of l-dopa on motor function with reduced dose of l-dopa and alleviating LID by normalising neurochemical imbalance within the basal ganglia.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":143621,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9531,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":612122,"name":"Bena Lee","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":611797,"name":"Insop Shim","orcid":"0000-0002-8014-9782","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":612123,"name":"Hyunwoo June Choo","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":612124,"name":"Ah Reum Doo","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555637,"name":"Younbyoung Chae","orcid":"0000-0001-6787-2215","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":601769,"name":"Jongbae J. Park","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":612125,"name":"Seung Nam Kim","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":612126,"name":"Ji Yeun Park","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":601091,"name":"Hi‐Joon Park","orcid":"0000-0002-0538-2664","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":611796,"name":"Hyejung Lee","orcid":"0009-0008-2506-4509","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:17:41.821196Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}