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.

Electrical Characterization of Acupuncture Points: Technical Issues and Challenges.

Ahn AC, Martinsen OG

Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA., Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA., Center for Biomedical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

Acupuncture points are frequently described as having distinct electrical properties. These properties include increased conductance, reduced impedance and resistance, increased capacitance, and elevated electrical potential compared to adjacent nonacupuncture points. Commercial electrodiagnostic devices have used this assertion as a means to localize and analyze acupuncture points for diagnostic purposes. Yet, the electrical characterization of acupuncture points is associated with important technical issues that are often overlooked. Electrode polarizability, stratum corneum impedance, presence of sweat glands, choice of contact medium, electrode geometry, and other factors contribute to the final electrodermal reading and may cause doubts about the validity of available electrodiagnostic devices. The goal of this review is to help researchers and clinicians understand these factors affecting electrodermal readings, to make apparent the difficulties and challenges confronting electrodermal readings, and to increase understanding about how these possible associations can be interpreted and understood from the perspective of biology.

Published 6 November 2007 in J Altern Complement Med, 13(8): 817-824.
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