[Acupuncture at the acupoints of different meridians at the same anatomy level: a study with functional magnetic resonance imaging.]

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the response of the specific brain functional areas of normal human to acupuncture at the acupoints of different Meridians at the same anatomy level. METHODS: Twelve healthy young volunteers were enrolled in this research and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans were taken randomly in a block design. During the stimulation phase, an acupuncture needle inserted in right Shenmen (HT7) or Yanglao (SI6) was twirled at an angle of 180 degrees and a frequency of about 1.5 Hz. The collected images were analyzed using SPM2 for exploring the inter-group differences in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) responses. RESULTS Increases in BOLD signal (group analysis, corrected, 0.05, K>/=10) were found mainly in the right ostcentral gyrus of the frontal lobe (BA2, BA1, BA43) and left inferior frontal gyrus (BA47) by acupuncture at HT7, and chiefly in the left inferior parietal lobule (BA 40) and right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45, BA 46) by acupuncture at SI6. CONCLUSION: Acupuncture of HT7 and SI6 elicits different BOLD responses in some related cerebral regions correlative with cognition.