Cerebral blood flow-based evidence for mechanisms of low- versus high-frequency transcutaneous electric acupoint stimulation analgesia: a perfusion fMRI study in humans.
Author: Jiang Y1, Liu J2, Liu J3, Han J1, Wang X2, Cui C4.
Affiliation:
1Neuroscience Research Institute, Peking University;Department of Neurobiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University;Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Public Health, Beijing, China. 2Department of Radiology, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China. 3Institute of Acu-moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. 4Neuroscience Research Institute, Peking University;Department of Neurobiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University;Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Public Health, Beijing, China. Electronic address: clcui@bjmu.edu.cn.
Conference/Journal: Neuroscience.
Date published: 2014 Mar 19
Other:
Pages: S0306-4522(14)00232-2 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2014.03.019 , Word Count: 305
Abstract
Brain activities in response to acupuncture have been investigated in multiple studies; however, the neuromechanisms of low- and high-frequency transcutaneous electric acupoint stimulation (TEAS) analgesia are unclear. This work aimed to investigate how brain activity and the analgesic effect changed across thirty-minute low- versus high-frequency TEAS. Forty-six subjects received 30 min 2 Hz, 100 Hz TEAS or Mock TEAS (MTEAS) treatment on both behavior test and fMRI scan days. On the behavior test day, the pain thresholds and pain-related negative emotional feeling ratings were tested five times - at 4.5 min before treatment, at 10 min, 20 min, and 30 min during treatment and 4.5 min after the treatment. On the fMRI scan day, to match the time-points in the behavioral testing session, the cerebral blood flow (CBF) signals were collected and incorporated with five independent runs before, during and after the treatment, each lasting 4.5 min. The analgesic effect was observed in both the TEAS groups; the analgesic affect was not found in the MTEAS group. The effect started at 20 min during the treatment and was maintained until the after-treatment states. In both TEAS groups, the regional CBF revealed a trend of early activation with later inhibition; also, a positive correlation between analgesia and the regional CBF change was observed in the anterior insula in the early stage, whereas a negative relationship was found in the parahippocampal gyrus in the later stage. The TEAS analgesia was specifically associated with the default mode network and other cortical regions in the 2 Hz TEAS group, ventral striatum and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in the 100 Hz TEAS group, respectively. These findings suggest that the mechanisms of low- and high-frequency TEAS analgesia are distinct and partially overlapped, and they verify the treatment time as a notable factor for acupuncture studies.
Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
KEYWORDS:
Acupuncture analgesia, Cerebral blood flow, Frequency, Transcutaneous electric acupoint stimulation
PMID: 24657460
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