Research Group of Pain and Neuroscience, WHO Collaborating Centre, East-west Medical Research Institute, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
BMC Complement Altern Med. 2014 Sep 15;14:336. doi: 10.1186/1472-6882-14-336.
Acupuncture is increasingly used as an additional treatment for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).
In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, brain activation in response to acupuncture in a group of 12 patients with PD was compared with a group of 12 healthy participants. Acupuncture was conducted on a specific acupoint, the right GB 34 (Yanglingquan), which is a frequently used acupoint for motor function treatment in the oriental medical field.
Acupuncture stimulation on this acupoint activates the prefrontal cortex, precentral gyrus, and putamen in patients with PD; areas that are known to be impaired in patients with PD. Compared with healthy participants, patients with PD showed significantly higher brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and precentral gyrus, especially visible in the left hemisphere.
The neuroimaging results of our study suggest that in future acupuncture research; the prefrontal cortex as well as the precentral gyrus should be treated for symptoms of Parkinson's disease and that GB 34 seems to be a suitable acupoint. Moreover, acupuncture evoked different brain activations in patients with Parkinson's disease than in healthy participants in our study, stressing the importance of conducting acupuncture studies on both healthy participants as well as patients within the same study, in order to detect acupuncture efficacy.
KCT0001122 at cris.nih.go.kr (registration date: 20140530).
针灸作为一种辅助治疗方法，越来越多地应用于帕金森病（PD）患者。
在这项功能磁共振成像研究中，我们比较了 12 例 PD 患者和 12 例健康参与者在接受针灸刺激时的大脑激活情况。针灸刺激的穴位是右侧 GB 34（阳陵泉），这是东方医学领域中常用于治疗运动功能的穴位。
针刺该穴位可激活 PD 患者的前额叶皮层、中央前回和壳核；这些区域在 PD 患者中通常存在功能障碍。与健康参与者相比，PD 患者的前额叶皮层和中央前回的大脑活动明显更高，尤其是在左半球。
我们的研究结果表明，在未来的针灸研究中，应针对帕金森病的症状对前额叶皮层和中央前回进行治疗，而 GB 34 似乎是一个合适的穴位。此外，与健康参与者相比，我们研究中的 PD 患者在接受针灸刺激时大脑的激活方式不同，这强调了在同一研究中同时对健康参与者和患者进行针灸研究以检测针灸疗效的重要性。
KCT0001122 在 cris.nih.go.kr（注册日期：20140530）。
