Underlying Mechanisms Of Acupuncture Research Articles

High-throughput metabolomic approach revealed the acupuncture exerting intervention effects by perturbed signatures and pathways

Metabolomics can capture global changes and the overall physiological status in biochemical networks and pathways in order to elucidate sites of perturbations. High-throughput metabolomics and acupuncturology have similar characteristics such as entirety, comprehensiveness and dynamic changes, and can identify potential candidates for acupuncture effects and provide valuable information towards understanding therapy mechanisms. Saliva has recently gained popularity as a potential tool for biomarker monitoring, as its composition may potentially reflect plasma metabolite levels and, therefore, may be used as an indicator of the physiological state. However, the underlying mechanism of acupuncture, remains largely unknown, which hinders its widespread use. Acupuncture would produce unique characterization of metabolic perturbations. In this study, UPLC/ESI-HDMS in high-accuracy mode coupled with pattern recognition analysis was carried out to investigate the mechanism and saliva metabolite biomarkers for acupuncture treatment at 'Zusanli' acupoint (ST-36) as a case study. Putative metabolite identifications for these ions were obtained through a mass-based database search. As a result, the top canonical pathways including phenylalanine metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, d-glutamine and d-glutamate metabolism, and steroid hormone biosynthesis pathways were acutely perturbed. 26 differential metabolites were identified by chemical profiling, and may be useful to clarify the physiological basis and mechanism of ST-36. More importantly, network construction has led to the integration of metabolites associated with the multiple perturbation pathways. These results provide useful insights into biomarker discovery utilizing metabolomics as an efficient and cost effective platform. This study opens new possibilities for the selection of saliva as a source of metabolite biomarkers representative of specific disorders.

Neuroendocrine Mechanisms of Acupuncture

Neuroendocrine Mechanisms of Acupuncture

Oscillatory neuronal dynamics associated with manual acupuncture: a magnetoencephalography study using beamforming analysis

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) enables non-invasive recording of neuronal activity, with reconstruction methods providing estimates of underlying brain source locations and oscillatory dynamics from externally recorded neuromagnetic fields. The aim of our study was to use MEG to determine the effect of manual acupuncture on neuronal oscillatory dynamics. A major problem in MEG investigations of manual acupuncture is the absence of onset times for each needle manipulation. Given that beamforming (spatial filtering) analysis is not dependent upon stimulus-driven responses being phase-locked to stimulus onset, we postulated that beamforming could reveal source locations and induced changes in neuronal activity during manual acupuncture. In a beamformer analysis, a two-minute period of manual acupuncture needle manipulation delivered to the ipsilateral right LI-4 (Hegu) acupoint was contrasted with a two-minute baseline period. We considered oscillatory power changes in the theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–13 Hz), beta (13–30 Hz), and gamma (30–100 Hz) frequency bands. We found significant decreases in beta band power in the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex and superior frontal gyrus (SFG). In the ipsilateral cerebral hemisphere, we found significant power decreases in beta and gamma frequency bands in only the SFG. No significant power modulations were found in theta and alpha bands. Our results indicate that beamforming is a useful analytical tool to reconstruct underlying neuronal activity associated with manual acupuncture. Our main finding was of beta power decreases in primary somatosensory cortex and SFG, which opens up a line of future investigation regarding whether this contributes toward an underlying mechanism of acupuncture.

Revealing metabolite biomarkers for acupuncture treatment by linear programming based feature selection

BackgroundAcupuncture has been practiced in China for thousands of years as part of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and has gradually accepted in western countries as an alternative or complementary treatment. However, the underlying mechanism of acupuncture, especially whether there exists any difference between varies acupoints, remains largely unknown, which hinders its widespread use.ResultsIn this study, we develop a novel Linear Programming based Feature Selection method (LPFS) to understand the mechanism of acupuncture effect, at molecular level, by revealing the metabolite biomarkers for acupuncture treatment. Specifically, we generate and investigate the high-throughput metabolic profiles of acupuncture treatment at several acupoints in human. To select the subsets of metabolites that best characterize the acupuncture effect for each meridian point, an optimization model is proposed to identify biomarkers from high-dimensional metabolic data from case and control samples. Importantly, we use nearest centroid as the prototype to simultaneously minimize the number of selected features and the leave-one-out cross validation error of classifier. We compared the performance of LPFS to several state-of-the-art methods, such as SVM recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) and sparse multinomial logistic regression approach (SMLR). We find that our LPFS method tends to reveal a small set of metabolites with small standard deviation and large shifts, which exactly serves our requirement for good biomarker. Biologically, several metabolite biomarkers for acupuncture treatment are revealed and serve as the candidates for further mechanism investigation. Also biomakers derived from five meridian points, Zusanli (ST36), Liangmen (ST21), Juliao (ST3), Yanglingquan (GB34), and Weizhong (BL40), are compared for their similarity and difference, which provide evidence for the specificity of acupoints.ConclusionsOur result demonstrates that metabolic profiling might be a promising method to investigate the molecular mechanism of acupuncture. Comparing with other existing methods, LPFS shows better performance to select a small set of key molecules. In addition, LPFS is a general methodology and can be applied to other high-dimensional data analysis, for example cancer genomics.

Characterizing the transmission of acupuncture signal: A combination of experimental and computational study

In order to reveal the underlying mechanisms about the conduction of acupuncture signal, manual acupuncture (MA) manipulations with different frequencies are taken at ‘Zusanli’ points of experimental rats. The induced electrical signal in spinal dorsal root ganglion is detected and recorded. It is found that rate coding features of acupuncture with different frequencies are different in PSTHs after spike sorting. Neuronal adaption and saturation phenomena are also observed. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, we develop a delayed feedforward network model with plasticity for acupuncture signal transmission path. It is shown that this model could account for some important experimental phenomena and make further testable predictions. The underlying mechanisms of acupuncture are better understood by combining the experiment and simulation results.

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt Signaling Pathway Mediates Acupuncture-Induced Dopaminergic Neuron Protection and Motor Function Improvement in a Mouse Model of Parkinson's Disease

ABSTRACTIt has been reported that acupuncture treatment reduced dopaminergic neuron degeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD) models. However, the mechanistic pathways underlying, such neuroprotection, are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the effects and the underlying mechanism of acupuncture in a mouse model of PD using 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). First, we observed that MPTP-induced impairment of Akt activation, but not MPTP-induced c-Jun activation, was effectively restored by acupuncture treatment in the substantia nigra. Furthermore, we demonstrated for the first time that the brain-specific blockade of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt signaling pathway, by intranasal administration of LY294002, a specific inhibitor of PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, significantly blocked acupuncture-induced dopaminergic neuron protection and motor function improvement. Our results provide evidence that PI3K/Akt signaling pathway may play a central role in the mechanism underlying acupuncture-induced benefits in Parkinsonian mice.

The Problem of Metal Needles in Acupuncture‐fMRI Studies

Acupuncture is a therapy based on sensory stimulation of the human body by means of metal needles. The exact underlying mechanisms of acupuncture have not been clarified so far. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become an important tool in acupuncture research. Standard acupuncture needles, which are made of ferromagnetic steel, however, are problematic in acupuncture-fMRI studies for several reasons, such as attraction by the scanner's magnetic field, significant image distortions and signal-dropouts, when positioned close to the head or even heating due to absorption of radio frequency (RF). The aim of this study was to compare two novel types of acupuncture needles with a standard needle for their effect on MRI image quality. The standard needle severely reduced image quality, when located inside the RF coil. The nonferromagnetic metal needle may pose a risk due to RF heating, while the plastic needle has a significantly larger diameter. In conclusion, our recommendations are: (1) standard needles should not be used in MRI; (2) Nonferromagnetic metal needles seem to be the best choice for acupoints outside of the transmitter coil; and (3) only plastic needles are suited for points inside the coil. Laser acupuncture may be a safe alternative, too.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of acupuncture mechanisms: a critique

AbstractFunctional magnetic resonance imaging has been used extensively to study the underlying mechanisms of acupuncture. More than 80 studies and a dozen review articles have been published on this topic in the past 10 years. Emphasising the statistical quality of the studies, this critical review evaluates the results obtained so far by studies that have used a hypothesis‐driven approach. A minimum sample size of 12 subjects, the application of random effects (or mixed effects) analyses, and a threshold corrected for multiple comparisons were defined as inclusion criteria for a meta‐analysis of the reported cortical activations. Fourteen out of 71 studies met the inclusion criteria. The majority of these studies reported activations in cortical areas relevant to the processing of somatosensory, motor, or pain signals, as well as areas related to the special senses. From this type of study, it is so far impossible to say if cortical activations under acupuncture are part of an underlying mechanism, or if they simply reflect the brain's processing of the somatosensory or pain stimulus from the acupuncture needle stimulation. In the future, the application of data‐driven methods may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of neuronally mediated acupuncture effects.

The Biophysics of Acupuncture: Emerging Patterns From Selected Studies

The underlying mechanisms of acupuncture and moxibustion are not self-evident, thus engendering considerable research interest. This article provides a glimpse of some of the pieces of the puzzle and draws some inferences from patterns that are emerging. Selected investigations of physical properties of points and channels, cellular effects of acupuncture, and physiologic effects are considered. Collectively, results point to some organizing principles that may give direction to future research.

Neural substrates, experimental evidences and functional hypothesis of acupuncture mechanisms

Although acupuncture therapy has demonstrated itself to be effective in several clinical areas, the underlying mechanisms of acupuncture in general and the analgesic effect in particular are, however, still not clearly delineated. We, therefore, have studied acupuncture analgesic effect through fMRI and proposed a hypothesis, based on the obtained result, which will enlighten the central role of the brain in acupuncture therapy. The proposed model, termed as a broad sense hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (BS-HPA) axis, was based on our observed neuroimaging results. The model incorporates the stress-induced HPA axis model together with neuro-immune interaction including the cholinergic anti-inflammatory model. The obtained results coupled with accumulating evidence suggest that the central nervous system is essential for the processing of these effects via its modulation of the autonomic nervous system, neuroimmune system and hormonal regulation. Based on our fMRI study, it appears that understanding the effects of acupuncture within a neuroscience-based framework is vital. Further, we have proposed the broad sense-HPA axis hypothesis which incorporates the experimental results.