Takakura Nobuari, Takayama Miho, Kawase Akiko, Kaptchuk Ted J, Yajima Hiroyoshi
Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Tokyo Ariake University of Medical and Health Sciences, 2-9-1 Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0063, Japan ; Second Department of Physiology, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo 142-8555, Japan ; Japan School of Acupuncture, Moxibustion and Physiotherapy, Tokyo 150-0031, Japan.
ISRN Pain. 2013;2013. doi: 10.1155/2013/825751.
Most of our knowledge about similarities in the neural processing of painful and pleasant sensations in the brain derives from studying each phenomenon separately. Patients often feel pain induced by acupuncture, which is noxious stimulation having the symbolic message of the cure, as pleasant.
We investigated whether the double-blind acupuncture needles are potential tool to investigate coinciding pain and pleasant events.
Participants were 109 healthy acupuncture students. An acupuncturist applied the double-blind placebo and the matching penetrating needle at bilateral forearm of each subject, one needle on each side of the arm. We asked the subjects to rate the pain associated with needle application and its unpleasantness or pleasantness on a visual analogue scale.
Of 65 penetrating needle applications that elicited pain, 29 (45%) subjects did not describe the pain as being unpleasant, and interestingly, 18 (28%) subjects described the needle insertion as pleasant. There was no significant difference in reported pain intensity between penetrating needles elicited pain that elicited a pleasant sensation and those that elicited an unpleasant sensation ( = 0.34).
The double-blind acupuncture needles can be a potential tool for investigating the concomitant hedonic (pleasure) experience of pain.
我们关于大脑中疼痛和愉悦感觉神经处理相似性的大部分知识来自于分别对每种现象的研究。患者常常会将针刺引起的疼痛（一种具有治疗象征意义的有害刺激）感觉为愉悦。
我们研究了双盲针灸针是否是研究疼痛与愉悦事件同时发生的潜在工具。
参与者为109名健康的针灸专业学生。一名针灸师在每个受试者的双侧前臂分别应用双盲安慰剂针和匹配的刺入针，手臂两侧各一针。我们要求受试者在视觉模拟量表上对与针刺相关的疼痛及其不愉快或愉悦程度进行评分。
在65次引起疼痛的刺入针应用中，29名（45%）受试者未将疼痛描述为不愉快，有趣的是，18名（28%）受试者将针刺描述为愉悦。引起愉悦感觉的刺入针所引发的疼痛与引起不愉快感觉的刺入针所引发的疼痛在报告的疼痛强度上无显著差异（ = 0.34）。
双盲针灸针可能是研究疼痛伴随的享乐（愉悦）体验的潜在工具。
