Significance of "Deqi" Response in Acupuncture Treatment: Myth or Reality.


Author: Zhou W1, Benharash P2.

Affiliation: 1Department of Anesthesiology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Electronic address: wzhou@mednet.ucla.edu. 2Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
Conference/Journal: J Acupunct Meridian Stud.
Date published: 2014 Aug
Other:
 Volume ID: 7   ,  Issue ID: 4   ,  Pages: 186-189   ,  Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.jams.2014.02.008   ,  Word Count: 144  
    

Acupuncture has been practiced in China for over 2000 years to treat a variety of diseases based on the "meridian theory," as described in the "Yellow Emperor's Classics of Internal Medicine." Deqi refers to the excitation of qi or vital energy inside meridians by acupuncture needle stimulation. Patients often experience multidimensional and intense needling sensations such as numbness, soreness, distention, heaviness, dull pain, and sharp pain during acupuncture stimulation. Deqi is considered as an important parameter in the process of achieving therapeutic effectiveness in acupuncture treatment. Understanding this phenomenon from neurophysiological aspects is important for clinical practice and enables practitioners to perform quantitative acupuncture evaluation to obtain a reliable prognosis of acupuncture treatment. This review paper describes our current knowledge and understanding of Deqi from a physiological aspect.

Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

KEYWORDS:

c-fibers; convergent input; functional magnetic resonance imaging; sensory nerve



PMID: 25151451