ArticleScientific reports2018
Phantom Acupuncture Induces Placebo Credibility and Vicarious Sensations: A Parallel fMRI Study of Low Back Pain Patients.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 4 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.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional brain alterations associated with acupuncture for chronic pain: a scoping review of fMRI studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Neuroimaging evidence for central mechanisms of acupuncture in non-specific low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Pooled it
- A coordinate-based meta-analysis of acupuncture for chronic pain: Evidence from fMRI studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Neuroimaging Studies of Acupuncture on Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Task-dependent functional connectivity of pain is associated with the magnitude of placebo analgesia in pain-free individuals.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2023Trial
- A true response of the brain network during electroacupuncture stimulation at scalp acupoints: An fMRI with simultaneous EAS study.Brain and behavior · 2023Trial
- Treatment of acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with acupuncture during hospitalization: a three-arm double-blinded randomized sham-controlled trial.Acupuncture in medicine : journal of the British Medical Acupuncture Society · 2022Trial
- Greater Somatosensory Afference With Acupuncture Increases Primary Somatosensory Connectivity and Alleviates Fibromyalgia Pain via Insular γ-Aminobutyric Acid: A Randomized Neuroimaging Trial.Arthritis & rheumatology (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2021Trial
- Effectiveness and cerebral responses of multi-points acupuncture for primary insomnia: a preliminary randomized clinical trial and fMRI study.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2020Trial
- Manual acupuncture versus sham acupuncture and usual care for prophylaxis of episodic migraine without aura: multicentre, randomised clinical trial.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020Trial
- Evaluating the Effect of Electroacupuncture in Knee Osteoarthritis: Protocol for a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial [Letter].Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- The Validated Touch-Video Database.Behavior research methods · 2025Article
- Beyond Needling: Integrating a Bayesian Brain Model into Acupuncture Treatment.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Translating knowledge on placebo and nocebo effects into clinical practice.Pain reports · 2024Article
- Cognitive and affective interaction with somatosensory afference in acupuncture-a specific brain response to compound stimulus.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Article
- The role of visual expectations in acupuncture analgesia: A quantitative electroencephalography study.Molecular pain · 2022Article
- Acupuncture modulates the frequency-specific functional connectivity density in primary dysmenorrhea.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Cognitive components of acupuncture treatment.Integrative medicine research · 2021Article
- Article
- Imagined and Actual Acupuncture Effects on Chronic Low Back Pain: A Preliminary Study.Neural plasticity · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although acupuncture is an effective therapeutic intervention for pain reduction, the exact difference between real and sham acupuncture has not been clearly understood because a somatosensory tactile component is commonly included in the existing sham acupuncture protocols. In an event-related fMRI experiment, we implemented a novel form of sham acupuncture, phantom acupuncture, that reproduces the acupuncture needling procedure without somatosensory tactile stimulation while maintaining the credibility of the acupuncture treatment context. Fifty-six non-specific low back pain patients received either real (REAL) or phantom (PHNT) acupuncture stimulation in a parallel group study. The REAL group exhibited greater activation in the posterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex, reflecting the needling-specific components of acupuncture. We demonstrated that PHNT could be delivered credibly. Interestingly, the PHNT-credible group exhibited bilateral activation in SI/SII and also reported vicarious acupuncture sensations without needling stimulation. The PHNT group showed greater activation in the bilateral dorsolateral/ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC/vlPFC). Moreover, the PHNT group exhibited significant pain reduction, with a significant correlation between the subjective fMRI signal in the right dlPFC/vlPFC and a score assessing belief in acupuncture effectiveness. These results support an expectation-related placebo analgesic effect on subjective pain intensity ratings, possibly mediated by right prefrontal cortex activity.
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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.