Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Aug 15, 2025; 16(8): 107779
Published online Aug 15, 2025. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v16.i8.107779
Electroacupuncture with different current intensities can improve gastrointestinal motility in diabetic gastroparesis via vagal and sympathetic pathways
Yi-Wen Tang, You Zhang, Jin Zhou, Yu-Ting Peng, Yan Zi, Yan-Rong Wei, Zeng-Hui Yue
Yi-Wen Tang, You Zhang, Jin Zhou, Yu-Ting Peng, Yan Zi, Yan-Rong Wei, Zeng-Hui Yue, College of Acupuncture, Massage and Rehabilitation, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha 410208, Hunan Province, China
Author contributions: Tang YW and Yue ZH designed the study; Tang YW, Zhang Y, and Zhou J performed the experiments; Tang YW, Zhou J, Peng YT, Zi Y, and Wei YR conducted the survey and research; Tang YW analyzed the results and wrote the article. All authors studied and approved the final version.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82205298; Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, No. 2023JJ30462; Hunan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, No. 2023SK2045, No. 22JBZ007, No. Z2023XJYQ07, No. B2024007, and No. Z2023JB01; and 2024 Graduate Innovation Topics, No. 2024CX031.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: The animal protocol was approved by the Animal Experimentation and Laboratory Animal Welfare Committee of Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, No. HNUCM21-2311-08.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zeng-Hui Yue, Postdoc, Professor, College of Acupuncture, Massage and Rehabilitation, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, No. 300 Bachelor Road, Yuelu District, Changsha 410208, Hunan Province, China. yue5381316@126.com
Received: March 30, 2025
Revised: April 21, 2025
Accepted: June 25, 2025
Published online: August 15, 2025
Processing time: 139 Days and 1.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Electroacupuncture (EA) repairs the interstitial cells of Cajal network by upregulating smooth muscle-related factors Rho guanine nucleotide-binding protein A and Rho-associated coiled-coil forming protein kinase, thereby significantly enhancing gastric emptying, restoring gastric slow wave rhythms, and improving smooth muscle structure. We found that EA may activate the vagal-cholinergic pathway at 0.5 mA current intensity and modulate the sympathoadrenergic pathway at 3 mA current intensity, finally promoting gastrointestinal motility.