Author
Listed:
- Wenjing Huang
- Daniel Pach
- Vitaly Napadow
- Kyungmo Park
- Xiangyu Long
- Jane Neumann
- Yumi Maeda
- Till Nierhaus
- Fanrong Liang
- Claudia M Witt
Abstract
Background: The mechanisms of action underlying acupuncture, including acupuncture point specificity, are not well understood. In the previous decade, an increasing number of studies have applied fMRI to investigate brain response to acupuncture stimulation. Our aim was to provide a systematic overview of acupuncture fMRI research considering the following aspects: 1) differences between verum and sham acupuncture, 2) differences due to various methods of acupuncture manipulation, 3) differences between patients and healthy volunteers, 4) differences between different acupuncture points. Methodology/Principal Findings: We systematically searched English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese databases for literature published from the earliest available up until September 2009, without any language restrictions. We included all studies using fMRI to investigate the effect of acupuncture on the human brain (at least one group that received needle-based acupuncture). 779 papers were identified, 149 met the inclusion criteria for the descriptive analysis, and 34 were eligible for the meta-analyses. From a descriptive perspective, multiple studies reported that acupuncture modulates activity within specific brain areas, including somatosensory cortices, limbic system, basal ganglia, brain stem, and cerebellum. Meta-analyses for verum acupuncture stimuli confirmed brain activity within many of the regions mentioned above. Differences between verum and sham acupuncture were noted in brain response in middle cingulate, while some heterogeneity was noted for other regions depending on how such meta-analyses were performed, such as sensorimotor cortices, limbic regions, and cerebellum. Conclusions: Brain response to acupuncture stimuli encompasses a broad network of regions consistent with not just somatosensory, but also affective and cognitive processing. While the results were heterogeneous, from a descriptive perspective most studies suggest that acupuncture can modulate the activity within specific brain areas, and the evidence based on meta-analyses confirmed some of these results. More high quality studies with more transparent methodology are needed to improve the consistency amongst different studies.
Suggested Citation
Wenjing Huang & Daniel Pach & Vitaly Napadow & Kyungmo Park & Xiangyu Long & Jane Neumann & Yumi Maeda & Till Nierhaus & Fanrong Liang & Claudia M Witt, 2012.
"Characterizing Acupuncture Stimuli Using Brain Imaging with fMRI - A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Literature,"
PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-1, April.
Handle:
RePEc:plo:pone00:0032960
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032960
Download full text from publisher
Citations
Citations are extracted by the
CitEc Project, subscribe to its
RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
- Yu, Haitao & Guo, Xinmeng & Qin, Qing & Deng, Yun & Wang, Jiang & Liu, Jing & Cao, Yibin, 2017.
"Synchrony dynamics underlying effective connectivity reconstruction of neuronal circuits,"
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 471(C), pages 674-687.
- Yu, Haitao & Liu, Jing & Cai, Lihui & Wang, Jiang & Cao, Yibin & Hao, Chongqing, 2017.
"Functional brain networks in healthy subjects under acupuncture stimulation: An EEG study based on nonlinear synchronization likelihood analysis,"
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 468(C), pages 566-577.
- Petra I Baeumler & Johannes Fleckenstein & Shin Takayama & Michael Simang & Takashi Seki & Dominik Irnich, 2014.
"Effects of Acupuncture on Sensory Perception: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,"
PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-40, December.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0032960. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.