Key result
Needling the Hegu acupoint significantly increased blood flow and altered relative energy contributions at specific frequencies, whereas needling a nearby nonacupoint had no effect.
Why the study?
Does needling the Hegu acupoint alter microcirculatory blood flow compared to needling a nonacupoint in healthy male volunteers?
Does needling the Hegu acupoint alter microcirculatory blood flow compared to needling a nonacupoint in healthy male volunteers?
Acupuncture at the Hegu acupoint induces specific microcirculatory blood-flow responses and sympathetic nerve activity changes not seen with nonacupoint needling.
Supports acupoint-specific microcirculatory effects; leaves open clinical relevance and needs confirmation in trials.
We aimed to assess the effects of acupuncture by analyzing the frequency content of skin blood-flow signals simultaneously recorded at the Hegu acupoint and two nearby nonacupoints following acupuncture stimulation (AS). Laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) signals were measured in male healthy volunteers in two groups of experiments: needling the Hegu acupoint (n = 13) and needling a nearby nonacupoint (control experiment; n = 10). Each experiment involved recording a 20 min baseline-data sequence and two sets of effects data recorded 0-20 and 50-70 min after stopping AS. Wavelet transform with Morlet mother wavelet was applied to the measured LDF signals. Needling the Hegu acupoint significantly increased the blood flow, significantly decreased the relative energy contribution at 0.02-0.06 Hz and significantly increased the relative energy contribution at 0.4-1.6 Hz at Hegu, but induced no significant changes at the nonacupoints. Also, needling a nearby nonacupoint had no effect in any band at any site. This is the first time that spectral analysis has been used to investigate the microcirculatory blood-flow responses induced by AS, and has revealed possible differences in sympathetic nerve activities between needling the Hegu acupoint and its nearby nonacupoint. One possible weakness of the present design is that different De-Qi feelings following AS could lead to nonblind experimental setup, which may bias the comparison between needling Hegu and its nearby nonacupoint. Our results suggest that the described noninvasive method can be used to evaluate sympathetic control of peripheral vascular activity, which might be useful for studying the therapeutic effects of AS.
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Hsiu et al. (2010) studied Healthy volunteers (n=23). Needling the Hegu acupoint vs. Needling a nearby nonacupoint was evaluated on Blood flow and relative energy contribution at 0.02-0.06 Hz and 0.4-1.6 Hz. Needling the Hegu acupoint significantly increased blood flow and altered relative energy contributions at specific frequencies, whereas needling a nearby nonacupoint had no effect.
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