Electroacupuncture Therapy for Cognitive Impairment after Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a highly disabling and destructive disease of the central nervous system (CNS), which not only leads to limb motor and sensory dysfunction but also disrupts the structure and function of the hippocampus and cortex, leading to cognitive impairment, which seriously affects patients' quality of life. Thus, it is imperative to explore effective treatment approaches and assessment methods. Electroacupuncture (EA) is a novel therapy that integrates traditional acupuncture with contemporary electrotherapy technology, which has the advantages of high safety and few side effects, and has been widely utilized in the management of SCI. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the Governor Vessel connects the brain and the spinal cord. Therefore, EA at the acupoints located on the Governor Vessel can effectively restore the functions of the brain and the spinal cord. In this protocol, we employed Allen's method to construct the SCI model. We introduced an EA procedure aimed at treating cognitive impairments in rats with SCI. Furthermore, we described in detail the operation process of the Y maze and novel object recognition (NOR) experiment to assess the efficacy of EA in ameliorating cognitive deficits in rats. This research not only provides a treatment protocol that serves as a reference for cognitive impairment after SCI but also offers preliminary experimental support for the validation of therapeutic strategies for this condition and subsequent research exploration.