Acupuncture (ST 36) Reduces Jaw Open Reflex in a Rat: A Pilot Study

Greg Goddard. DDS

University of California at San Francisco, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery San Francisco, California

E-mail: greggtmd@yahoo.com

Accepted 11 February, 2013

Abstract

Acupuncture has been shown to reduce pain in rats. Morphine is the standard of analgesia and has been shown to reduce the JOR in rats by about 50%. Jaw Opening Reflex is a validated measurement of pain in rats. Other methods of pain response such as tail flick to heat have also been used. Stomach 36 is an important point in reducing pain in both animals and humans. St 36 has been often used in rats because it is easy to locate anatomically on small animals. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that acupuncture at Stomach 36 would decrease pain as measured by a decrease in the jaw opening reflex of a rat. An electrode is placed in the pulp of the lower incisor of a rat and in the digastric muscle, and after placing an acupuncture needle at St 36, an electrical stimulus was applied to the pulp and the JOR is measured. One rat was tested in a laboratory. After placing an acupuncture needle at St 36, an electrical stimulus was applied to the pulp and the JOR is measured. The change in JOR was measured over time. We had a significant drop in JOR with acupuncture at ST 36 with an N of 1. This pilot study shows promise for more studies using a larger sample size.

Keywords: acupuncture, jaw opening reflex, analgesia, rats, stomach 36.