The Role of the Cerebral Cortex in Acupuncture Modulation of the Somesthetic Afferent

Abad-Alegría, F; Adelantado, S; Martínez, T. Muñoz

doi:10.1142/s0192415x95000031

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…After electro puncture of the APs lying in the meridians, obvious antinociceptive effects arose (22). Considerable changes in nociceptive evoked potentials were observed in human brains after AP GI-4 stimulation, but such changes did not appear if the adjacent nonacupuncture area was stimulated (33). Introduction of the acupuncture needle into the human AP E-36 produced specific changes in the spectrum of the radial arterial pulse, but such changes did not occur if the needle was introduced into the skin outside the AP (34).…”

Section: The Effect Of P Light On Formalin-induced Pain Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suppression of Pain by Exposure of Acupuncture Points to Polarized Light

Limansky

Tamarova

Gulyar

2006

Pain Research and Management

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Section: The Effect Of P Light On Formalin-induced Pain Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suppression of Pain by Exposure of Acupuncture Points to Polarized Light

Limansky

Tamarova

Gulyar

2006

Pain Research and Management

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“…The action of both metameric (Abad-Alegría and Bono, 1988;Melendo and Abad-Alegría, 1991;Abad-Alegría and Bono, 1992) and central (Abad-Alegría and Galve, 1993;Abad-Alegría et al, 1995a and1996) acupunctural stimulus has been demonstrated by neurophysiological methods, which are corroborated by the few external studies published on the same subjects (Yamauchi et al, 1976;Hsieh, 1998;Wei et al, 2000;Bossi et al, 1984;Knardhal et al, 1998). The purpose of this research, carried out in the field of simple somesthesia, is to find out whether De-Qi has any objective neurological correlate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

About the Neurobiological Foundations of the De-Qi — Stimulus-Response Relation

Abad-Alegría

Pomarón

2004

Am. J. Chin. Med.

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In acupunctural reflexotherapy, it is usually stated that no appreciable therapeutic effect is obtained under a certain stimulation level, which is determined by the appearance of a particular sensation known as De-Qi. Given that afference control actions of the central nervous system do not work in this way, but rather adapt, with some peculiarities, to a classical schedule of proportionality between stimulus and response, our aim is to evaluate the extent to which acupunctural stimuli of increasing intensity can also increasingly modify neurophysiological parameters, by focusing on quantification of metameric levels, by an F-wave study and by means of somatosensorial evoked potential in the telencephalus. Twenty-one healthy volunteers were studied; values corresponding to the parameters indicated in a basal situation were taken and both a non-acupunctural point and the classical 4IG point were punctured simply, until the De-Qi sensation was obtained, following which, electrical stimulation was applied. Clear progressiveness was observed in the modifications of both the F-value and somesthesic potential values with increasing stimuli. It is true that the main inflexion occurs where obtaining De-Qi, but when overstimulation is applied from that time, greater variations take place, which is particularly patent in the case of somesthesic potential latency. Furthermore, the puncture of an extrachannel point shows that the mere puncturing of the skin does not produce any of the aforementioned effects. Despite the classical postulates, it is observed that, the greater the intensity of the acupunctural stimulus, the greater the modifications in the neurophysiological parameters studied. Control of somesthesic afference by acupuncture has already been demonstrated and quantified; now, however, the direct relation between the intensity of this effect and that of the stimulus used to produce it, which is quite far removed from the classical energetic conceptions, is also observed. The effect of acupunctural stimulation is closely related to the intensity of the stimulus applied and the De-Qi sensation is not required to obtain neurofunctional modifications and stimulations that go beyond it producing greater effects.

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“…While many studies have shown that acupuncture could modify somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) to conventional stimuli 1 –3 and pain stimuli, 4,5 less study has been done on the SEPs elicited by acupuncture itself. In addition, the stimulating method of those few studies on SEPs elicited by acupoint stimuli had been carried out with surface electrodes, 6,7 but the clinical practice of acupuncture is mostly performed by inserting the needle inside the body.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early-latency Somatosensory Evoked Potentials Elicited by Electrical Acupuncture after Needling Acupoint LI-4

Wei¹,

Kong²,

Ding³

et al. 2000

Clinical Electroencephalography

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The stimulating methods of prior studies on somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) elicited by acupoint stimulus had involved surface electrodes, while the clinical practice of acupuncture is mostly performed by inserting the acupuncture needle inside the body. Clinical observations show that there are often some special sensations when LI-4 is needled. To observe if the SEPs produced by acupoint acupuncture had a distinguishing property, we studied the SEPs elicited by electrical acupuncture after the acupuncture needle was inserted into LI-4 and its control point, and then mapped them with the 128-channel Electric Brain Signal Image system. We also compared this to SEPs by median nerve stimuli. Results showed that the most interesting finding was the marked differences of N1-P1 and N2-P2 amplitude between SEPs at LI-4 (SEP-LI) and its control point (SEP-CP), which were in the opposite direction. Marked differences were also found between latencies and amplitudes of the SEPs elicited by acupuncture and by median nerve stimulus (SEP-M). The differences between SEP-LI and SEP-CP might be due to the additional effects of the activation of nerve endings and muscle spindles in LI-4 to the SEPs formed by the activation of superficial and deep radial nerves during electrical acupuncture. The differences between SEPs to acupoint and median nerve stimuli might be mainly due to the different distances from the stimulated regions to the cerebral cortex, the diversity and the number of activated fibers.

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The Role of the Cerebral Cortex in Acupuncture Modulation of the Somesthetic Afferent

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Suppression of Pain by Exposure of Acupuncture Points to Polarized Light

Suppression of Pain by Exposure of Acupuncture Points to Polarized Light

About the Neurobiological Foundations of the De-Qi — Stimulus-Response Relation

Early-latency Somatosensory Evoked Potentials Elicited by Electrical Acupuncture after Needling Acupoint LI-4

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