Wei Yarui, Mei Ling, Long Xiaojing, Wang Xiaoxiao, Diao Yanjun, Nguchu Benedictor A, Hu Sheng, Wang Yanming, Yu Haibo, Qiu Bensheng
Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, Anhui, China.
Shenzhen Key Laboratory for MRI, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020 Feb 22;2020:6794013. doi: 10.1155/2020/6794013. eCollection 2020.
Clinical and experimental data suggest that ultrasound stimulation (US) at acupoints can produce similar effective treatment compared to manual acupuncture (MA). Although the brain activation to MA at acupoints is investigated by numerous studies, the brain activation to US at acupoints remains unclear.
In the present work, we employed task state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the human brain's activation to US and MA at ST 36 () which is one of the most commonly used acupoints in acupuncture-related studies. 16 healthy subjects underwent US and MA procedures in an interval of more than one week. On-off block design stimulation was used for the recording of fMRI-related brain patterns.
Both US and MA at ST 36 produced activations in somatosensory and limbic/paralimbic regions (postcentral gyrus, insula, middle prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex). Only US at ST 36 produced a significant signal increase in the inferior parietal lobule and decrease in the posterior cingulate cortex, whereas MA at ST 36 produced a significant signal increase in the lentiform nucleus and cerebellum.
Our results indicate that US may be a possible noninvasive alternative method to MA due to its similar activation patterns.
临床和实验数据表明，穴位超声刺激（US）与手动针刺（MA）相比可产生相似的有效治疗效果。尽管众多研究对穴位手动针刺时的脑激活情况进行了探究，但穴位超声刺激时的脑激活情况仍不明确。
在本研究中，我们采用任务态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来探究人体大脑对足三里穴（ST 36）超声刺激和手动针刺的激活情况，足三里穴是针刺相关研究中最常用的穴位之一。16名健康受试者在间隔超过一周的时间内接受了超声刺激和手动针刺操作。采用开-关式组块设计刺激来记录与fMRI相关的脑模式。
足三里穴的超声刺激和手动针刺均在躯体感觉和边缘/边缘旁区域（中央后回、岛叶、前额叶中部皮质和前扣带回皮质）产生激活。仅足三里穴的超声刺激在顶下小叶产生显著信号增强，在后扣带回皮质产生信号减弱，而足三里穴的手动针刺在豆状核和小脑产生显著信号增强。
我们的结果表明，由于超声刺激与手动针刺具有相似的激活模式，它可能是一种可行的非侵入性替代方法。
