Acupuncture Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Acupuncture, including details on alternative medicine, uses, benefits, treatment, chinese medicine.

Laser acupuncture induced specific cerebral cortical and subcortical activations in humans.

Siedentopf CM, Koppelstaetter F, Haala IA, Haid V, Rhomberg P, Ischebeck A, Buchberger W, Felber S, Schlager A, Golaszewski SM

Department of Radiology II, University Hospital of Innsbruck, Anichstrasse 35, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria, christian.siedentopf@fmri-easy.de.

As recent studies demonstrated, acupuncture can elicit activity in specific brain areas. This study aims to explore further the central effect using laser acupuncture. We investigated the cerebral effects of laser acupuncture at both acupoints GB43 with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). As a control condition the laser was mounted at the same acupoints but without application of laser stimulation. The group results showed significant brain activations within the thalamus, nucleus subthalamicus, nucleus ruber, the brainstem, and the Brodmann areas 40 and 22 for the acupuncture condition. No significant brain activations were observed within the placebo condition. The activations we observed were laser acupuncture-specific and predominantly ipsilateral. This supports the assumption that acupuncture is mediated by meridians, since meridians do not cross to the other side. Furthermore, we could show that laser acupuncture allows one to design a pure placebo condition.

Published 28 September 2005 in Lasers Med Sci, 20(2): 68-73.
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