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The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation

BACKGROUND: As laser acupuncture is being increasingly used to treat mental disorders, we sought to determine whether it has a biologically plausible effect by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the cerebral activation patterns from laser stimulation of relevant acupoi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Quah-Smith, Im, Sachdev, Perminder S., Wen, Wei, Chen, Xiaohua, Williams, Mark A.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935390/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20838644
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012619
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author Quah-Smith, Im
Sachdev, Perminder S.
Wen, Wei
Chen, Xiaohua
Williams, Mark A.
author_facet Quah-Smith, Im
Sachdev, Perminder S.
Wen, Wei
Chen, Xiaohua
Williams, Mark A.
author_sort Quah-Smith, Im
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: As laser acupuncture is being increasingly used to treat mental disorders, we sought to determine whether it has a biologically plausible effect by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the cerebral activation patterns from laser stimulation of relevant acupoints. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Ten healthy subjects were randomly stimulated with a fibreoptic infrared laser on 4 acupoints (LR14, CV14, LR8 and HT7) used for depression following the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and 1 control non-acupoint (sham point) in a blocked design (alternating verum laser and placebo laser/rest blocks), while the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI response was recorded from the whole brain on a 3T scanner. Many of the acupoint laser stimulation conditions resulted in different patterns of neural activity. Regions with significantly increased activation included the limbic cortex (cingulate) and the frontal lobe (middle and superior frontal gyrus). Laser acupuncture tended to be associated with ipsilateral brain activation and contralateral deactivation that therefore cannot be simply attributed to somatosensory stimulation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We found that laser stimulation of acupoints lead to activation of frontal-limbic-striatal brain regions, with the pattern of neural activity somewhat different for each acupuncture point. This is the first study to investigate laser acupuncture on a group of acupoints useful in the management of depression. Differing activity patterns depending on the acupoint site were demonstrated, suggesting that neurological effects vary with the site of stimulation. The mechanisms of activation and deactivation and their effects on depression warrant further investigation.
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spelling pubmed-29353902010-09-13 The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation Quah-Smith, Im Sachdev, Perminder S. Wen, Wei Chen, Xiaohua Williams, Mark A. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: As laser acupuncture is being increasingly used to treat mental disorders, we sought to determine whether it has a biologically plausible effect by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the cerebral activation patterns from laser stimulation of relevant acupoints. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Ten healthy subjects were randomly stimulated with a fibreoptic infrared laser on 4 acupoints (LR14, CV14, LR8 and HT7) used for depression following the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and 1 control non-acupoint (sham point) in a blocked design (alternating verum laser and placebo laser/rest blocks), while the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI response was recorded from the whole brain on a 3T scanner. Many of the acupoint laser stimulation conditions resulted in different patterns of neural activity. Regions with significantly increased activation included the limbic cortex (cingulate) and the frontal lobe (middle and superior frontal gyrus). Laser acupuncture tended to be associated with ipsilateral brain activation and contralateral deactivation that therefore cannot be simply attributed to somatosensory stimulation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We found that laser stimulation of acupoints lead to activation of frontal-limbic-striatal brain regions, with the pattern of neural activity somewhat different for each acupuncture point. This is the first study to investigate laser acupuncture on a group of acupoints useful in the management of depression. Differing activity patterns depending on the acupoint site were demonstrated, suggesting that neurological effects vary with the site of stimulation. The mechanisms of activation and deactivation and their effects on depression warrant further investigation. Public Library of Science 2010-09-07 /pmc/articles/PMC2935390/ /pubmed/20838644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012619 Text en Quah-Smith et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Quah-Smith, Im
Sachdev, Perminder S.
Wen, Wei
Chen, Xiaohua
Williams, Mark A.
The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation
title The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation
title_full The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation
title_fullStr The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation
title_full_unstemmed The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation
title_short The Brain Effects of Laser Acupuncture in Healthy Individuals: An fMRI Investigation
title_sort brain effects of laser acupuncture in healthy individuals: an fmri investigation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935390/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20838644
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012619
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