Li Changhong, Liu Yamin, Ning Baile, Wu Lihua, Zhang Yuan, Zhou Junhe, Zhang Delong, Zhou Peng, Fu Wenbin
College of Teacher Education, Guangdong University of Education, Guangzhou, China.
Shenzhen Bao'an Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Shenzhen, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2025 Sep 2;19:1494267. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1494267. eCollection 2025.
Acupuncture, a cornerstone of Chinese integrative medicine, demonstrates clinical efficacy for pain- and inflammation-related conditions through extensive clinical practices. Using multimodal neuroimaging techniques (fMRI and PET), numerous studies have investigated acupuncture's impact on brain structure and function. However, a systematic integration of these findings is still lacking. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analysis using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) approach to identify brain regions that consistently modulated by verum acupuncture in both healthy populations and patients. Critically, establishing neural signatures in healthy populations provides a foundational baseline for normative brain responses, which is essential to detect pathological deviations in patient cohorts. Subsequent behavioral domain analyses elucidated the functional profiles of these significant clusters. To characterize whole brain functional connectivity architecture that associated with identified regions, we employed meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) and seed-based resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analyses. Our analyses consistently implicated the bilateral inferior parietal lobule (extending into postcentral gyrus) and right thalamus, key regions within the somatosensory pain processing network, as core neural substrates that modulated by acupuncture in healthy populations. Functional connectivity analyses further demonstrated that these brain clusters engaged a distributed pain-processing network, including bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA), superior temporal gyrus (STG), and insular cortex. Taken together, these findings provide a mechanistic neurobiological basis for acupuncture-induced pain processing and identify potential therapeutic targets within the pain-associated neural circuitry.
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42024562566, identifier CRD42024562566.
针灸作为中医综合治疗的基石，通过广泛的临床实践，在治疗疼痛和炎症相关病症方面展现出临床疗效。运用多模态神经成像技术（功能磁共振成像和正电子发射断层扫描），众多研究探讨了针灸对脑结构和功能的影响。然而，目前仍缺乏对这些研究结果的系统整合。为解决这一问题，我们采用激活可能性估计（ALE）方法进行了一项荟萃分析，以确定在健康人群和患者中均受真针灸持续调节的脑区。至关重要的是，在健康人群中建立神经特征可为正常脑反应提供基础基线，这对于检测患者群体中的病理偏差至关重要。随后的行为领域分析阐明了这些显著簇的功能概况。为了表征与所确定区域相关的全脑功能连接结构，我们采用了荟萃分析连接建模（MACM）和基于种子的静息态功能连接（rsFC）分析。我们的分析一致表明，双侧下顶叶小叶（延伸至中央后回）和右侧丘脑，即体感疼痛处理网络中的关键区域，是健康人群中受针灸调节的核心神经基质。功能连接分析进一步表明，这些脑簇参与了一个分布式疼痛处理网络，包括双侧辅助运动区（SMA）、颞上回（STG）和岛叶皮质。综上所述，这些发现为针灸诱导的疼痛处理提供了神经生物学机制基础，并确定了疼痛相关神经回路中的潜在治疗靶点。
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42024562566，标识符CRD42024562566。
