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Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture

Acupuncture has been used to treat various disorders in China and some other eastern countries for thousands of years. Nowadays, acupuncture is gradually accepted as an alternative and complementary method in western countries for its undeniable therapeutic effects. However, its central mechanism is...

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Autores principales: Sun, Ruirui, Yang, Yue, Li, Zhengjie, Li, Ying, Cheng, Shirui, Zeng, Fang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3910072/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24523823
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/568429
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author Sun, Ruirui
Yang, Yue
Li, Zhengjie
Li, Ying
Cheng, Shirui
Zeng, Fang
author_facet Sun, Ruirui
Yang, Yue
Li, Zhengjie
Li, Ying
Cheng, Shirui
Zeng, Fang
author_sort Sun, Ruirui
collection PubMed
description Acupuncture has been used to treat various disorders in China and some other eastern countries for thousands of years. Nowadays, acupuncture is gradually accepted as an alternative and complementary method in western countries for its undeniable therapeutic effects. However, its central mechanism is still unclear. It is especially difficult to reveal how different regions in the brain influence one another and how the relationship is among these regions responding to acupuncture treatment. Recently, by applying neuroimaging techniques and network theory, acupuncture studies can make further efforts to investigate the influence of acupuncture on regional cerebral functional connectivity (FC) and the modulation on “acupuncture-related” networks. Connectomics appears to be a new direction in research to further understand the central mechanism underlying acupuncture. In this paper, an overview of connectomics application in acupuncture research will be discussed, with special emphasis on present findings of acupuncture and its influence on cerebral FC. Firstly, the connectomics concept and its significance on acupuncture will be outlined. Secondly, the commonly used brain imaging techniques will be briefly introduced. Thirdly, the influence of acupuncture on FC will be discussed in greater detail. Finally, the possible direction in forthcoming research will be reviewed by analyzing the limitation of present studies.
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spelling pubmed-39100722014-02-12 Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture Sun, Ruirui Yang, Yue Li, Zhengjie Li, Ying Cheng, Shirui Zeng, Fang Evid Based Complement Alternat Med Review Article Acupuncture has been used to treat various disorders in China and some other eastern countries for thousands of years. Nowadays, acupuncture is gradually accepted as an alternative and complementary method in western countries for its undeniable therapeutic effects. However, its central mechanism is still unclear. It is especially difficult to reveal how different regions in the brain influence one another and how the relationship is among these regions responding to acupuncture treatment. Recently, by applying neuroimaging techniques and network theory, acupuncture studies can make further efforts to investigate the influence of acupuncture on regional cerebral functional connectivity (FC) and the modulation on “acupuncture-related” networks. Connectomics appears to be a new direction in research to further understand the central mechanism underlying acupuncture. In this paper, an overview of connectomics application in acupuncture research will be discussed, with special emphasis on present findings of acupuncture and its influence on cerebral FC. Firstly, the connectomics concept and its significance on acupuncture will be outlined. Secondly, the commonly used brain imaging techniques will be briefly introduced. Thirdly, the influence of acupuncture on FC will be discussed in greater detail. Finally, the possible direction in forthcoming research will be reviewed by analyzing the limitation of present studies. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-01-02 /pmc/articles/PMC3910072/ /pubmed/24523823 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/568429 Text en Copyright © 2014 Ruirui Sun et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review Article
Sun, Ruirui
Yang, Yue
Li, Zhengjie
Li, Ying
Cheng, Shirui
Zeng, Fang
Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture
title Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture
title_full Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture
title_fullStr Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture
title_full_unstemmed Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture
title_short Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture
title_sort connectomics: a new direction in research to understand the mechanism of acupuncture
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3910072/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24523823
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/568429
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