Traditional Chinese Medicine Department, The 2nd Teaching Hospital, Jilin University, 218 Ziqiang Street, Changchun 130041, Jilin Province, P.R. China.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2009 Jun;6(2):185-93. doi: 10.1093/ecam/nen002. Epub 2008 Jan 23.
Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese therapy with its mode of action unclear and efficacy inconclusive. A lack of attention given to the role of psychosocial context presented in clinical provision of acupuncture may mainly account for the current dilemma in acupuncture research. This psychosocial context induces various cognitive and affective processes in the patient while receiving this treatment. On the basis of the analysis of these psychological factors involved in clinical provision of acupuncture and in light of prior studies on the placebo effect, the author hypothesizes that acupuncture works through potentiation and modulation of a highly organized and somatotopic network of endogenous opioids that links expectation, attention and body schema. This hypothesis, which focuses on the contextual factors involved in clinical provision of acupuncture, has immediate clinical and experimental implications and will take the acupuncture debate much further forward.
针灸是一种古老的中国疗法，其作用模式尚不清楚，疗效也不确定。在提供针灸治疗时，人们对临床中呈现的心理社会背景的作用重视不够，这可能是当前针灸研究困境的主要原因。在接受这种治疗时，这种心理社会背景会在患者身上引起各种认知和情感过程。基于对针灸临床中涉及的这些心理因素的分析，并结合先前关于安慰剂效应的研究，作者假设针灸是通过增强和调节内源性阿片类物质的高度组织化和躯体定位网络来发挥作用的，这种网络将期望、注意力和身体图式联系起来。这一假说侧重于针灸临床提供中涉及的情境因素，具有直接的临床和实验意义，并将使针灸研究更进一步。
