Trial reportJournal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation2025
Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation combined with acupuncture therapy on brain network functional connectivity in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a single-center randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Transcranial direct current stimulation for pain threshold in knee osteoarthritis: a mechanism-oriented systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Pooled it
- Osteoarthritis: Epidemiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment.MedComm · 2026Review
- Evaluating the Effect of Electroacupuncture in Knee Osteoarthritis: Protocol for a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- Brain cortex activity of patients with disorders of consciousness under familiar and unfamiliar voice of subject's own name: an fNIRS-based study.Frontiers in neurologyArticle
- Advancing stroke rehabilitation: the potential and challenges of closed-loop brain-computer interface technology.Frontiers in neurologyReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIn this study, we investigated the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with acupuncture therapy on pain, dysfunction and functional connectivity in patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA), and to evaluate its potential therapeutic value.
methodIn this single-center, randomized controlled trial, patients were recruited from May 2023 to August 2024 from the Departments of Rehabilitation, Orthopedics, and Pain Management at the Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College. The patients were randomly assigned to three groups, including the acupuncture group, the tDCS group, and the combined acupuncture and tDCS group. All treatments were administered five times a week for two weeks. The condition of the patients was evaluated by the visual analog scale (VAS), the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), the Lequesne index, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) before treatment and after two weeks of treatment, respectively.
resultsIn total, 63 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to three groups. Three patients were excluded for work-related reasons, fear of acupuncture, or time conflicts repectively, which prevented further follow-up. The VAS score, WOMAC score, and Lequesne indexes of all patients were significantly lower after treatment than before treatment (P < 0.01). Compared to the tDCS group and the acupuncture group, the combined group showed greater improvements in the VAS score, WOMAC score, and Lequesne indexes (P < 0.05). The fNIRS results indicated a significant reduction in the mean cerebral functional connectivity strength based on oxyhemoglobin (HbO2) and deoxyhemoglobin (HbR) across all three groups following treatment (P < 0.05). The functional connectivity strengths of the HbO2-based LPFC ~ LPFC, RPFC ~ RPFC, LMC ~ LMC, RMC ~ RMC, LPFC ~ RPFC, LPFC ~ LMC, LPFC ~ RMC, RPFC ~ LMC, RPFC ~ RMC, LMC ~ RMC; HbR-based LPFC ~ LPFC, RPFC ~ RPFC, LMC ~ LMC, RMC ~ RMC, LPFC ~ LMC, LPFC ~ RMC and LMC ~ RMC in the combined group were significantly lower than those in the acupuncture group (P < 0.05).The HbO2-based LPFC ~ LPFC, RPFC ~ RPFC, LMC ~ LMC, and RMC ~ RMC in the combined group were significantly lower than those in the tDCS group (P < 0.01). Compared to those in the acupuncture group, the HbR-based LPFC ~ LPFC and LMC ~ LMC of the patients in the tDCS group were lower (P < 0.05).
conclusionsThe combination therapy of tDCS and acupuncture is better than monotherapy in relieving pain and dysfunction in patients with KOA. The improvement in efficacy may be related to the reduction in brain functional connectivity and may become a new treatment method for treating KOA.
trial registrationChiCTR2300073819.
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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.