Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience (Apr 2022)

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Improves Neurological Function and Promotes the Anti-inflammatory Polarization of Microglia in Ischemic Rats

  • Jing Luo,
  • Yuan Feng,
  • Mingyue Li,
  • Mingyu Yin,
  • Feng Qin,
  • Xiquan Hu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2022.878345
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16

Abstract

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Ischemic stroke (IS) is a severe neurological disease that is difficult to recovery. Previous studies have shown that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a promising therapeutic approach, while the exact therapy mechanisms of rTMS in improving neural functional recovery remain unclear. Furthermore, the inflammatory environment may influence the rehabilitation efficacy. Our study shows that long-term rTMS stimulation will significantly promote neurogenesis, inhibit apoptosis, and control inflammation. rTMS inhibits the activation of transcription factors nuclear factor kappa b (NF-κB) and signal transducer and activator of transcription 6 (STAT6) and promotes the anti-inflammatory polarization of microglia. Obvious promotion of anti-inflammatory cytokines production is observed both in vitro and in vivo through rTMS stimulation on microglia. In addition, neural stem cells (NSCs) cultured in conditioned medium (CM) from microglia treated with rTMS showed downregulation of apoptosis and upregulation of neuronal differentiation. Overall, our results illustrate that rTMS can modulate microglia with anti-inflammatory polarization variation, promote neurogenesis, and improve neural function recovery.

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