Body of Research

Physicians who practice medical acupuncture, often provide acupuncture treatment in cases where patients have reportedly “failed” to respond to contemporary Western medicine, and have found provide considerable benefit. Physicians appreciate an understanding of the biologic evidence, and in the paper, "Acupuncture: The Search for Biologic Evidence with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Tomography Techniques," Zhang-Hee Cho, PhD, and his colleagues present comparisons of cortical activations from three sets of experiments. These comparisons are observed from activations of: “Pain” stimulation (alone); “Meridian-Acupuncture Pain” stimulation; and “Sham-Acupuncture Pain” stimulation. Results show those cortical centers involved in pain “perception,” attention “riveting,” “modulation,” and “relay." However, in the acupuncture stimulations the only areas that remain activated are the much reduced supplementary motor and primary motor areas. The paper points to evidence for a prominent role of astrocytes and note that pineal gland and tectal areas are also decreased substantially with acupuncture stimulation.