The FMRI Study Of Electro-Acupuncture At Different Acupoints Modulating The Relative Specific Brain Network

The specific brain effects of acupoint are an important scientific concern in the research of acupuncture neuromechanism. However, most fMRI acupuncture studies focused on acupoints on the limb, employed simple design and data analyzing method, and some interpreted the results without convincible evidence. Therefore, researches on acupoints of different properties, using new experiment designs and new data analyzing methods are warranted. In this study, brain effects of acupuncture on trunk at acupoints Guanyuan (CV4) and Zhongwan (CV12) were tested using fMRI scan on 21 healthy volunteers at resting state, during needle retention, electroacupuncture (EA), and post-EA resting state. According anatomic knowledge, Guanyuan (CV4) and Zhongwan (CV12) have different nerve innervations, but share the same meridian category and same tissue type (connective tissue). Brain areas activated by EA at these two acupoints were analyzed with SPM2. The local and remote connectivity maps were calculated with whole brain correlation analysis. We thus compared brain functional activity and connectivity between CV4 and CV12. It revealed that EA at CV4 and CV12 induced apparent deactivation effects in the limbic-paralimbic-neocortical network (LPNN); default mode of the brain at rest was modified by needle retention and EA, respectively; functional brain network changed significantly after EA, and instant post-acupuncture effects were found mainly in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and anteroinferior portion of the anterior cingulate cortex. The results showed that relatively small differences of brain activity and functional connectivity were found between these two acupoints. It indicates that relative specificity of acupoint effect in the brain exists. The results demonstrated similarity between functional brain network mode of acupuncture effects and functional circuits of emotional and cognitive regulation. Therefore, we hypothesize that therapeutic effects of acupuncture analgesia,acupuncture on anxiety. depression may be mediated by the limbic-paralimbic-neocortical network (LPNN)...