Figure 1.

EA pretreatment and model preparation for rats in three groups. (a) The experimental procedure included 5 consecutive days of pretreatment stage and the subsequent modeling stage for one day (I: ischemia, insertion of suture to block the blood flow; R: reperfusion, withdrawal of the suture to restore blood flow at 90 minutes after ischemia). (b) EA stimulation. (c) Cerebral blood flow of the baseline (t₁) and postischemia (t₂). (d) Blood flow after reperfusion (t₃). (e) Comparison of cerebral blood flow at different time points (n = 8). The unit of blood flow “AU” is the unit determined by the manufacturer. The blood flow at three time points was compared using one-way ANOVA for repeated measurement. The results did not meet the sphericity test (Mauchly W = 0.252, P < 0.05), so the differences among groups were examined using MANOVA (F = 470464.634, P < 0.001) followed by LSD for post hoc multiple comparisons. ^∗P vs. sham; ^#P vs. MCAO/R.