ArticleJournal of the American Heart Association2026
Electroacupuncture Alleviates Brain Injury Through Vagus Nerve Activation and Gut Microbiota in a Rat Model of Ischemic Stroke.
Article in Journal of the American Heart Association, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effects of electroacupuncture on neurological outcomes and brain-gut axis-associated changes in experimental ischemic stroke models: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of acupuncture for septic gastrointestinal dysfunction: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Electroacupuncture Attenuates Cerebral Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury via Vagus Nerve-α7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor-Dependent Microglial Polarization.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2026Article
- Does the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis Mediate the Antidepressant Effects of Acupuncture? A Structured Review of Preclinical and Clinical Evidence.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Review
- FUT2-mediated intestinal fucosylation: a master regulator of host-microbiota symbiosis in health and disease.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- The neuro-immuno-metabolic axis of exercise: a unified mechanistic framework for exercise-induced cognitive enhancement and psychological resilience.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEmerging evidence implicates gut microbiota dysbiosis in exacerbating stroke pathogenesis via the gut-brain axis, suggesting novel therapeutic targets. While electroacupuncture (EA) demonstrates anti-inflammatory effects through vagus nerve activation, its neuroprotective mechanisms via vagus nerve-microbiota crosstalk remain unexplored.
methodsRats with middle cerebral artery occlusion received daily ST36 (Acupoint Zusanli) EA for 1 to 7 days postischemia. Subdiaphragmatic vagotomy and fecal microbiota transplant were implemented to validate pathway specificity. Multimodal assessments included longitudinal neurological scoring, infarct volume, systemic/neuroinflammatory profiling (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, immunohistochemistry), intestinal fucosylation dynamics (quantitative polymerase chain reaction, lectin staining), and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing of gut microbiota.
resultsEA significantly improved neurological outcomes and reduced infarct volumes at 3 to 7 days after middle cerebral artery occlusion (versus controls), which was abolished by vagotomy. Mechanistically, EA restored gut barrier integrity through vagus-dependent upregulation of fucosyltransferase 2 (Fut2)-driven epithelial α1,2-fucosylation, enhancing mucin 2+ goblet cell density and tight junction protein expression (ZO-1/occludin/claudin-1). Concurrent microbiota shifts included Lactobacillales/Bacteroidales enrichment (linear discriminant analysis >4.0) and pathobiont suppression, which was reversed by vagotomy. Crucially, fecal microbiota transplant from EA-treated donors replicated neuroprotection in germ-free recipients, achieving 33% infarct reduction and 30% survival improvement (
conclusionsEA at ST36 produced neuroprotection through activating vagal efferent pathways to orchestrate intestinal mucosal repair via Fut2-mediated fucosylation, which reshape microbial ecosystems and attenuate neuroinflammation. These findings establish a previously unrecognized vagus nerve-gut-brain axis mechanism for stroke recovery, positioning microbiota-directed neuromodulation by EA as a translatable therapeutic strategy.
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