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Abstract
BackgroundAcupuncture in humans can produce clinical effects via the central nervous system. However, the neural substrates of acupuncture’s effects remain largely unknown.ResultsWe utilized functional MRI to investigate the topological efficiency of brain functional networks in eighteen healthy young adults who were scanned before and after acupuncture at the ST36 acupoints (ACUP) and its sham point (SHAM). Whole-brain functional networks were constructed by thresholding temporal correlations matrices of ninety brain regions, followed by a graph theory-based analysis. We showed that brain functional networks exhibited small-world attributes (high local and global efficiency) regardless of the order of acupuncture and stimulus points, a finding compatible with previous studies of brain functional networks. Furthermore, the brain networks had increased local efficiency after ACUP stimulation but there were no significant differences after SHAM, indicating a specificity of acupuncture point in coordinating local information flow over the whole brain. Moreover, significant (P<0.05, corrected by false discovery rate approach) effects of only acupuncture point were detected on nodal degree of the left hippocampus (higher nodal degree at ACUP as compared to SHAM). Using an uncorrected P<0.05, point-related effects were also observed in the anterior cingulate cortex, frontal and occipital regions while stimulation-related effects in various brain regions of frontal, parietal and occipital cortex regions. In addition, we found that several limbic and subcortical brain regions exhibited point- and stimulation-related alterations in their regional homogeneity (P<0.05, uncorrected).ConclusionsOur results suggest that acupuncture modulates topological organization of whole-brain functional brain networks and the modulation has point specificity. These findings provide new insights into neuronal mechanism of acupuncture from the perspective of functional integration. Further studies would be interesting to apply network analysis approaches to study the effects of acupuncture treatments on brain disorders.
Highlights
Acupuncture, which utilizes fine needles to pierce through specific anatomical points, has been extensively used in traditional Chinese medicine and has emerged as an important modality of complementary and alternative therapy to Western medicine [1,2]
The statistical analysis revealed no difference between the ACUP and the sham point (SHAM) groups in regards to the prevalence of acupuncture sensations (P.0.05)
There was no significant difference in the pain intensity measured by the VAS between ACUP and SHAM groups (P.0.05)
Summary
Acupuncture, which utilizes fine needles to pierce through specific anatomical points (called ‘‘acupoints’’), has been extensively used in traditional Chinese medicine and has emerged as an important modality of complementary and alternative therapy to Western medicine [1,2]. Researchers have begun to utilize blood oxygenation level-dependent functional MRI (fMRI), a non-invasive imaging technique mapping brain function, to investigate biological mechanisms underlying the acupuncture therapy. Several fMRI studies have shown that acupuncture stimulation is associated with extensive alterations of brain activity [6,7,8,9,10,11]. Research has shown that acupuncture stimulation produces brain activation in several regions of the limbic system, such as the cingulate cortex and insula [6,7,8,9,10,11]. Other fMRI studies showed deactivation in these regions [7,9,10,12,13,14,15,16] The results of these studies are inconsistent in regards to the responses of the limbic system to acupuncture stimulation. The neural substrates of acupuncture’s effects remain largely unknown
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