Trial reportScientific reports2014
Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients.
Trial report in Scientific reports, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Functional brain alterations associated with acupuncture for chronic pain: a scoping review of fMRI studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Coordinate-based (ALE) meta-analysis of acupuncture for musculoskeletal pain.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Trial
- Enhancing treatment of osteoarthritis knee pain by boosting expectancy: A functional neuroimaging study.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2018Trial
- Acupuncture modulates the abnormal brainstem activity in migraine without aura patients.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2017Trial
- Acupuncture treatment modulates the corticostriatal reward circuitry in major depressive disorder.Journal of psychiatric research · 2017Trial
- Repeated acupuncture treatments modulate amygdala resting state functional connectivity of depressive patients.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2016Trial
- The modulation effect of longitudinal acupuncture on resting state functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients.Molecular pain · 2015Trial
- Intra-articular injections of liposomal adenosine improve clinical outcomes and slow radiologic progression in a preclinical canine model of osteoarthritis.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2026Article
- Longitudinal MRI identifies associations between cognitive decline, inflammatory markers, and hippocampal subregion volumes in individuals with knee osteoarthritis.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Effects of 650 nm laser acupuncture on cartilage, bone, and skeletal muscle in osteoarthritis.Bone reports · 2025Article
- Acupuncture in Knee Osteoarthritis: A Narrative Review of Clinical Efficacy and Neuroimmune-Endocrine Mechanisms.Journal of pain research · 2025Review
- Exploration of Key Brain Regions Involved in Acupuncture and Moxibustion Analgesia: An Imaging-Based Study.Journal of pain research · 2025Review
- Therapeutic Potential of Acupuncture in Knee Osteoarthritis: Clinical Efficacy and Mechanistic Insights.Journal of inflammation research · 2025Review
- Acupuncture-Related Therapy for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Narrative Review of Neuroimaging Studies.Journal of pain research · 2024Review
- Therapeutic applications and potential mechanisms of acupuncture in migraine: A literature review and perspectives.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Review
- Magnetic resonance imaging for chronic pain: diagnosis, manipulation, and biomarkers.Science China. Life sciences · 2021Review
- Evidence of Potential Mechanisms of Acupuncture from Functional MRI Data for Migraine Prophylaxis.Current pain and headache reports · 2021Review
- Electroacupuncture activates inhibitory neural circuits in the somatosensory cortex to relieve neuropathic pain.iScience · 2021Article
- Sex-Specific Abnormalities and Treatment-Related Plasticity of Subgenual Anterior Cingulate Cortex Functional Connectivity in Chronic Pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In this study, we investigated cortical thickness and functional connectivity across longitudinal acupuncture treatments in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Over a period of four weeks (six treatments), we collected resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans from 30 patients before their first, third and sixth treatments. Clinical outcome showed a significantly greater Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) pain score (improvement) with verum acupuncture compared to the sham acupuncture. Longitudinal cortical thickness analysis showed that the cortical thickness at left posterior medial prefrontal cortex (pMPFC) decreased significantly in the sham group across treatment sessions as compared with verum group. Resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis using the left pMPFC as a seed showed that after longitudinal treatments, the rsFC between the left pMPFC and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), medial frontal pole (mFP) and periaquiduct grey (PAG) are significantly greater in the verum acupuncture group as compared with the sham group. Our results suggest that acupuncture may achieve its therapeutic effect on knee OA pain by preventing cortical thinning and decreases in functional connectivity in major pain related areas, therefore modulating pain in the descending pain modulatory pathway.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.