ArticleFrontiers in neuroscience2022
The cumulative therapeutic effect of acupuncture in patients with migraine without aura: Evidence from dynamic alterations of intrinsic brain activity and effective connectivity.
Article in Frontiers in neuroscience, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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12 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional brain alterations associated with acupuncture for chronic pain: a scoping review of fMRI studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Network localization of regional intrinsic neural activity alterations in migraine and their neurochemical correlates.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Pooled it
- Acupuncture for migraine: a literature review of neuroimaging studies.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Imaging the brain and vascular reactions to headache treatments: a systematic review.The journal of headache and pain · 2023Pooled it
- Acupuncture Alters Brain's Dynamic Functional Network Connectivity in Stroke Patients with Motor Dysfunction: A Randomised Controlled Neuroimaging Trial.Neural plasticity · 2023Trial
- Mechanisms of Different Brainstem Nuclei Involved in Electroacupuncture-Induced Analgesia.Chinese journal of integrative medicine · 2026Review
- Abnormal Functional Network Centrality and Causal Connectivity in Migraine Without Aura: A Resting-State fMRI Study.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Article
- Changes in effective connectivity during the visual-motor integration tasks: a preliminary f-NIRS study.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2024Article
- Exploring feasibility of fNIRS to assess delayed inhibition effect of prefrontal cortex for acute stress by acupuncture on GV20: a pilot study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Article
- Altered Brain Functional and Effective Connectivity Induced by Electroacupuncture in Rats Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Transection.Journal of pain research · 2024Article
- Altered dynamic functional architecture in type 2 diabetes mellitus.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
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Abstract
We explored the dynamic alterations of intrinsic brain activity and effective connectivity after acupuncture treatment to investigate the underlying neurological mechanism of acupuncture treatment in patients with migraine without aura (MwoA). The Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans were separately obtained at baseline, after the first and 12th acupuncture sessions in 40 patients with MwoA. Compared with the healthy controls (HCs), patients with MwoA mostly showed a decreased dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (dALFF) variability in the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM), superior lobe of left cerebellum (Cerebellum_Crus1_L), right precuneus (PCUN.R), and so on. The decreased dALFF variability of RVM, Cerebellum_Crus1_L, and PCUN.R progressively recovered after the first and 12th acupuncture treatment sessions as compared to the baseline. There was gradually increased dynamic effective connectivity (DEC) variability in RVM outflow to the right middle frontal gyrus, left insula, right precentral gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus, and gradually enhanced DEC variability from the right fusiform gyrus inflow to RVM. Furthermore, the gradually increased DEC variability was found from Cerebellum_Crus1_L outflow to the left middle occipital gyrus and the left precentral gyrus, from PCUN.R outflow to the right thalamus. These dALFF variabilities were positively correlated with the frequency of migraine attacks and negatively correlated with disease duration at baseline. The dynamic Granger causality analysis (GCA) coefficients of this DEC variability were positively correlated with Migraine-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire scores and negatively correlated with the frequency of migraine attacks and visual analog scale (VAS) scores after 12th acupuncture sessions. Our results were analyzed by a longitudinal fMRI in the absence of a sham acupuncture control group and provided insight into the dynamic alterations of brain activity and effective connectivity in patients with MwoA after acupuncture intervention. Acupuncture might relieve MwoA by increasing the effective connectivity of RVM, Cerebellum_Crus1_L, and PCUN.R to make up for the decreased dALFF variability in these brain areas.
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