ArticleEvidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM2015
Brain Network Response to Acupuncture Stimuli in Experimental Acute Low Back Pain: An fMRI Study.
Article in Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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
36 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neuroimaging evidence for central mechanisms of acupuncture in non-specific low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Coordinate-based (ALE) meta-analysis of acupuncture for musculoskeletal pain.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Acupuncture for neuropathic pain in adults.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- Blockade of the brachial plexus abolishes activation of specific brain regions by electroacupuncture at LI4: a functional MRI study.Acupuncture in medicine : journal of the British Medical Acupuncture Society · 2015Trial
- Modulation of Brain Activity in Patients with Acute Non-Specific Low Back Pain by Wentong Guan Therapy: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study.Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- Pain classification using functional near infrared spectroscopy and assessment of virtual reality effects in cancer pain management.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Exploration of Key Brain Regions Involved in Acupuncture and Moxibustion Analgesia: An Imaging-Based Study.Journal of pain research · 2025Review
- Shared and distinct brain activation patterns of acupoints HT7, ST36, and KI4: a task-based fMRI study.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Resting-state brain activity as a biomarker of chronic pain impairment and a mediator of its association with pain resilience.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Multimodal non-invasive non-pharmacological therapies for chronic pain: mechanisms and progress.BMC medicine · 2023Review
- Article
- Multimodal physiological sensing for the assessment of acute pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Integration of Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (DAOM) Students in a Trauma Center's Acute Pain Service: In-Person and Remote Training and Patient Care.Medical acupuncture · 2022Article
- Early Fractional Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuation Can Predict the Efficacy of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Treatment for Migraine Without Aura.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2022Article
- Brain Mechanism of Acupuncture Treatment of Chronic Pain: An Individual-Level Positron Emission Tomography Study.Frontiers in neurology · 2022Article
- Personality differences in brain network mechanisms for placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia in experimental pain: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.Annals of translational medicine · 2021Article
- Progress of Acupuncture Therapy in Diseases Based on Magnetic Resonance Image Studies: A Literature Review.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Review
- Resting-State fMRI in Studies of Acupuncture.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2021Review
- Neuroimaging in the Understanding of Acupuncture Analgesia: A Review of Acupuncture Neuroimaging Study Based on Experimental Pain Models.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Review
- Sex Differences in the Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent Signal to Placebo Analgesia and Nocebo Hyperalgesia in Experimental Pain: A Functional MRI Study.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Most neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that acupuncture can significantly modulate brain activation patterns in healthy subjects, while only a few studies have examined clinical pain. In the current study, we combined an experimental acute low back pain (ALBP) model and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the neural mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia. All ALBP subjects first underwent two resting state fMRI scans at baseline and during a painful episode and then underwent two additional fMRI scans, once during acupuncture stimulation (ACUP) and once during tactile stimulation (SHAM) pseudorandomly, at the BL40 acupoint. Our results showed that, compared with the baseline, the pain state had higher regional homogeneity (ReHo) values in the pain matrix, limbic system, and default mode network (DMN) and lower ReHo values in frontal gyrus and temporal gyrus; compared with the OFF status, ACUP yielded broad deactivation in subjects, including nearly all of the limbic system, pain status, and DMN, and also evoked numerous activations in the attentional and somatosensory systems; compared with SHAM, we found that ACUP induced more deactivations and fewer activations in the subjects. Multiple brain networks play crucial roles in acupuncture analgesia, suggesting that ACUP exceeds a somatosensory-guided mind-body therapy for ALBP.
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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.