Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
Chin J Integr Med. 2024 Jan;30(1):3-9. doi: 10.1007/s11655-023-3692-2. Epub 2023 Feb 15.
Acupuncture, a therapeutic treatment defined as the insertion of needles into the body at specific points (ie, acupoints), has growing in popularity world-wide to treat various diseases effectively, especially acute and chronic pain. In parallel, interest in the physiological mechanisms underlying acupuncture analgesia, particularly the neural mechanisms have been increasing. Over the past decades, our understanding of how the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system process signals induced by acupuncture has developed rapidly by using electrophysiological methods. However, with the development of neuroscience, electrophysiology is being challenged by calcium imaging in view field, neuron population and visualization in vivo. Owing to the outstanding spatial resolution, the novel imaging approaches provide opportunities to enrich our knowledge about the neurophysiological mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia at subcellular, cellular, and circuit levels in combination with new labeling, genetic and circuit tracing techniques. Therefore, this review will introduce the principle and the method of calcium imaging applied to acupuncture research. We will also review the current findings in pain research using calcium imaging from in vitro to in vivo experiments and discuss the potential methodological considerations in studying acupuncture analgesia.
针灸，一种被定义为将针插入身体特定穴位（即穴位）的治疗方法，在世界范围内越来越受欢迎，可有效治疗各种疾病，尤其是急性和慢性疼痛。与此同时，人们对针灸镇痛的生理机制，特别是神经机制的兴趣也在不断增加。在过去的几十年中，我们通过使用电生理学方法，迅速发展了对中枢神经系统和周围神经系统如何处理针灸引起的信号的理解。然而，随着神经科学的发展，钙成像在视野、神经元群体和体内可视化方面，对电生理学提出了挑战。由于具有出色的空间分辨率，新型成像方法为我们提供了机会，使我们能够结合新的标记、遗传和电路追踪技术，在亚细胞、细胞和电路水平上丰富我们对针灸镇痛的神经生理机制的认识。因此，本综述将介绍钙成像在针灸研究中的原理和方法。我们还将回顾钙成像在从体外到体内实验的疼痛研究中的最新发现，并讨论研究针灸镇痛时的潜在方法学考虑因素。
