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| An fMRI study on cervical spinal cord after acupuncture electrical stimulation at Hegu(LI4) |
| WANG Wei-dong, KONG Kang-mei, WANG Xin-jia, WU Ren-hua, SHEN Zhi-wei |
| The Second Affiliated Hospital, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou Guangdong 515000, China |
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Abstract Objective: To investigate the acupuncture response by evaluating the neuronal activity in cervical spinal cord assessed with SEEP-fMRI by comparison between electrical acupuncture stimulation at LI4 and the sham point. Methods: The fMRI data using single-shot fast spin-echo sequence(SSFSE) with 42.4 ms echo time on a 1.5T MRI scanner(GE Clinical System) were acquired in sixteen subjects with electro-acupuntcure at an acupoint and at a nearby“sham” point, and nine patients with cervical spinal cord injury with electro-acupuntcure at LI4. Cervical spinal cord activation was measured both in the sagittal and transverse imaging planes. Postprocessing was performed by AFNI(Analysis of Functional Neuroimages) software system. Electrical LI4 without stimulation(rest) was applied in 35-s epochs alternating with 35-s epochs of stimulation. Images were acquired repeatedly during alternating rest and stimulation periods for five times, resulting in a total of 63 time points recorded with the ending of R5=35s. Results: Our results revealed that common activation areas in response to LI4 and sham point acupuncture measured in the spinal cord were most in terms of the ipsilateral posterior direction, and the localizations of the segmental fMRI activation were at C5 through T1. The activated regions localized to the ipsilateral side of lower cervical segments(C5 through T1) were in agreement with the neural anatomy. However, the activation of the upper cervical segment, in particular C2~C3 level, located at the ipsilateral posterior and anterior direction was only found at the real acupoint. These specific spinal cord activation patterns might suggest that stimulation of LI4 has a specific effect on spinal cord neuronal activity, absent with the sham-acupoint. Conclusion: The fMRI activations could be reliably detected with electro-acupuntcure at LI4 in the human spinal cord using SSFSE sequence. The anatomic location of neural activity correlated with the sensorimotor deficits. But the activation of the upper cervical segment, in particular C2~C3 level, might correspond to the special transmission channel of acupuncture.
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Received: 18 July 2014
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2015, Vol. 26 
