Department of Geriatrics, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, China.
Department of Neurology, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, China.
Neural Plast. 2020 Dec 8;2020:8884318. doi: 10.1155/2020/8884318. eCollection 2020.
Heterogeneous neurological responses of acupuncture between different groups have been proposed by previous studies but rarely studied. The study described here was designed to explore the divergence of acupuncture at Taixi (KI3) on spontaneous activity of brain regions and functional connectivity (FC) between healthy youth and elder with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). 20 healthy young volunteers and 20 healthy elders underwent 10-minute-resting-state fMRI before acupuncture, and then acupuncture at Taixi (KI3) for 3 minutes; after withdrawing the needles, volunteers underwent a second fMRI scan for 10 minutes. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) and large-scale FC analysis using Power 264 atlas were utilized to analyze the changes of brain spontaneous activity. Compared with the resting state, the decreased ReHo after acupuncture at KI3 in both groups were concentrated in the left postcentral, right paracentral lobule, and right SMA. Moreover, the subjects in the HY group showed declined ReHo in brain regions involving the right lingual and precentral. However, those subjects in the HE group presented decreased ReHo in the right postcentral and precentral, left supramarginal gyrus and SMA, and both cingulum middle after needling in KI3. Compared with the resting state, the HY group in the postneedling state showed lower mean intranetwork FC in sensory/somatomotor and subcortical network. And the internetwork FC between sensory/somatomotor and dorsal attention had significantly decreased after acupuncture. Furthermore, the internetwork FC between subcortical and dorsal attention and between subcortical and cerebellar showed the most obvious elevations after needling in the HY group. In the elder group, both FCs of internetwork and intranetwork primarily involving sensory/somatomotor, cingulo-opercular, and dorsal attention were declined after acupuncture. These results indicated that acupuncture at KI3 had heterogeneous acupuncture effects in different age groups. Our study led to converging evidence supporting the acupuncture effect segregation of different condition subjects and supporting evidence for prevention and treatment with acupuncture in the future.
先前的研究提出了不同组别之间针灸的神经反应存在异质性，但很少有研究对此进行探讨。本研究旨在使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）探索在健康青年和老年人群中，针刺太溪（KI3）对脑区自发活动和功能连接（FC）的影响。20 名健康青年志愿者和 20 名健康老年人在针刺前进行了 10 分钟的静息态 fMRI，然后针刺太溪（KI3）3 分钟；针拔出后，志愿者进行了第二次 fMRI 扫描，持续 10 分钟。使用 Power 264 图谱进行局部一致性（ReHo）和大尺度 FC 分析，以分析大脑自发活动的变化。与静息状态相比，两组针刺 KI3 后 ReHo 降低的区域主要集中在左侧中央后回、右侧旁中央小叶和右侧 SMA。此外，青年组受试者表现出大脑中涉及右侧舌回和中央前回的 ReHo 降低。然而，老年组受试者针刺 KI3 后表现出右侧中央后回和中央前回、左侧缘上回和 SMA，以及扣带中间部的 ReHo 降低。与静息状态相比，针刺后青年组的感觉/躯体运动网络和皮质下网络的内网络 FC 平均值较低。针刺后，感觉/躯体运动网络与背侧注意网络的内网络 FC 和背侧注意网络与皮质下网络的内网络 FC 显著降低。此外，针刺后青年组皮质下网络与背侧注意网络以及皮质下网络与小脑网络之间的网络 FC 升高最为明显。老年组中，针刺后感觉/躯体运动网络、扣带缘上回和背侧注意网络等主要涉及的内网络和网络间 FC 均下降。这些结果表明，针刺 KI3 在不同年龄组中的效果存在异质性。本研究为不同疾病状态下针刺效果的分离提供了趋同证据，并为今后的针刺预防和治疗提供了证据。
