<p style="text-align: center;">WANG&nbsp; Shuju,WANG Qi,MA Jun,YU Pei hao,WANG Zhongming,WANG Bin</p><p style="text-align: center;">( College of Acupuncture- Moxibustion and Orthopedics, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine/Hubei Provincial&nbsp; Collaborative Innovation Center&nbsp; of Preventive Treatment by Acupuncture&nbsp; and Moxibustion , Wuhan&nbsp; 430061,&nbsp; China</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Abstract:</strong>&nbsp; <strong>Objective</strong>: To&nbsp; observe the effects of&nbsp; moxibustion treatment&nbsp; on the expression of p-mtor、p-4EBP1 and α-synuclein in substantia nigra of rat model with Parkinson&#39;s disease,and&nbsp; explore the mechanism of&nbsp; moxibustion&nbsp; treatment&nbsp; for&nbsp; PD.&nbsp; <strong>Methods</strong>：&nbsp; A&nbsp; total&nbsp; of&nbsp; 60&nbsp; healthy&nbsp; male&nbsp; SD&nbsp; rats&nbsp; were&nbsp; randomly&nbsp; and averagely divided into normal group, sham-operation group, model group and moxibustion group, with 15 rats&nbsp; in&nbsp; each&nbsp; group.&nbsp; PD&nbsp; rat&nbsp; model&nbsp; was&nbsp; induced&nbsp; by&nbsp; subcutaneous&nbsp; injection&nbsp; of&nbsp; rotenone&nbsp; dissolved&nbsp; into sunflower oil emulsion at the back of the neck&nbsp; (2&nbsp; mg/ml), and rats in the sham-operation group were injected with sun-flower oil that did not include&nbsp; rotenone. Rats in normal group were not treated. Rats in moxibustion group&nbsp; were&nbsp; treated&nbsp; by&nbsp; moxibustion&nbsp; at&nbsp; &quot;Zusanli&quot;&nbsp; (double)、&quot;Guanyuan&quot;&nbsp; and&nbsp; &quot;Fengfu&quot;&nbsp; ,&nbsp; once&nbsp; a&nbsp; day,&nbsp; 10 minutes everytime, 7 days for a course of treatment, continuous treatment for two courses. After the end of treatment, the rats were tested for their behavior, then Western blot was used to detect changes of the levels of p-mtor and p-4EBP1 in substantia nigra and immunohistochemistry was used to observe the expression of&nbsp; a-synuclein&nbsp; in&nbsp; substantia&nbsp; nigra.&nbsp; Results:&nbsp; The&nbsp; rats&nbsp; in&nbsp; the&nbsp; model&nbsp; group&nbsp; appeared&nbsp; obvious&nbsp; abnormal behavior, and after moxibustion treatment,&nbsp; behavior scores of rats significantly decreased in moxibustion group&nbsp; compared&nbsp; with&nbsp; the&nbsp; model&nbsp; group&nbsp; (P&lt;0.01).Compared&nbsp; with&nbsp; the&nbsp; normal&nbsp; group&nbsp; and&nbsp; sham-operation group, the levels of a-synuclein , p-mtor and p-4EBP1 increased significantly in model group&nbsp; (P&lt;0.01); Compared with the model group, after treatment, the levels of a-synuclein, p-mtor and p-4EBP1 decreased obviously in moxibustion group&nbsp; (P&lt;0.01).&nbsp; <strong>Conclusion</strong>: Moxibustion at Zusanli&nbsp; (double), Guanyuan and Fengfu can reduce the level of a-synuclein in substantia nigra of model rats and improve the behavioral performance of model rats. One of the endogenous mechanisms may through inhibiting the over activation of the mTOR/4EBP1 pathway to reduce the excess expression of α-synuclein and relive the toxicity for DA neurons.</p><p><strong>Key words</strong>: Moxibustion, Parkinson&#39;s disease, p-mtor, p-4EBP1, α-syn</p><p><br/></p>