Evaluation of a method to experimentally induce colic in horses and the effects of acupuncture applied at the Guan-yuan-shu (similar to BL-21) acupoint.

This research sought to test the reliability of a method for inducing colic through the inflation of a small intestine in horses and to examine the effectiveness of a specific acupuncture treatment in relieving the resulting pain. The researchers found that the method of inducing colic was successful, but the acupuncture treatment provided no significant reduction in the animals’ discomfort.

Methodology

• In this study, five healthy adult horses were each equipped with a gastric cannula.
• Through these, a polyester balloon attached to an electronic barostat was inserted into the duodenum.
• The balloon was inflated to a pre-set pressure, which caused the horses to display signs of moderate colic.
• This inflation was maintained for 10 minutes, with clusters of these sessions interspersed with applications of electroacupuncture (EAP).
• During this process, heart and respiratory rates were constantly monitored and signs of colic were noted by two trained observers.
• Five different treatment protocols were applied to the horses, each designed to mimic a different potential intervention method for colic. These included EAP at two different frequencies, sham EAP at the same frequencies, and no treatment. Sham EAP was applied at a point slightly removed from the tested acupoint.

Results

• Through this methodology, researchers confirmed that duodenal distention was a consistent method to induce signs of colic in the test subjects.
• However, the various EAP treatments were found to be ineffective in providing significant relief from the discomfort caused by the induced colic.

Conclusions

• The research validates the selected method for experimentally inducing colic as a reproducible and highly controllable one. This suggests that it could be useful in future studies to test the efficacy of other analgesic strategies.
• However, the study also found that the bilateral EAP applied at the Guan-yuan-shu acupoint was ineffective as a form of treatment for the discomfort caused by this colic-inducing method.