Acupuncture

Acupuncture Research

The grass is always greener: a critical look at the lessons and challenges of acupuncture education in America. PMID: 40330785.

Recent approaches on signal transduction and transmission in acupuncture: a biophysical overview for medical sciences. PMID: 31765838.

Anatomical Evidence of Acupuncture Meridians in the Human Extracellular Matrix: Results from a Macroscopic and Microscopic Interdisciplinary Multicentre Study on Human Corpses. PMID: 31015853.

Neuroembryology of the Acupuncture Principal Meridians: Part 3. The Head and Neck. PMID: 29682148.

Peripheral Sensory Nerve Tissue but Not Connective Tissue Is Involved in the Action of Acupuncture. PMID: 30872987.

Is the newly described interstitial network the anatomical basis of acupuncture meridians? PMID: 30874366.

American Academy of Medical Acupuncture.

The Society for Acupuncture Research. The society's mission is to promote, advance and disseminate scientific inquiry into Oriental medicine systems, which include acupuncture, herbal therapy and other modalities through quantitative and qualitative research addressing clinical efficacy, physiological mechanisms, patterns of use and theoretical foundations.

The State of 21st Century Acupuncture in the United States. PMCID: PMC11472758.

Unanticipated Insights into Biomedicine from the Study of Acupuncture. PMID: 26745452.

Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain: Recommendations to Medicare/Medicaid from the Society for Acupuncture Research (SAR). PMID: 30925124.

Acupuncture for chronic pain. PMID: 24595780.

Default Mode Network as a Neural Substrate of Acupuncture: Evidence, Challenges and Strategy. PMID: 30804749.

Effect of Auricular Acupuncture on Propofol Induction Dose: Could Vagus Nerve and Parasympathetic Stimulation Replace Intravenous Co-Induction Agents?

Acupuncture Mechanisms: Anesthesia, Analgesia and Protection on Organ Functions.

Acupuncture For Military PTSD Found Effective.

Acupuncture benefits breast cancer survivors.

Selected NCCIH Acupuncture Information

International Perspectives on Acupuncture Research. Claudia M. Witt, M.D., M.B.A., a professor for medicine and Acting Director of the Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics at the University Medical Center Charité in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Witt is also visiting professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. This talk includes the safety of acupuncture, it's efficacy and effectiveness, neuroimaging and stimulation studies, acupuncture styles, individual treatment response, comparative effectiveness research, and more.

NCCIH Information on Acupuncture.

The Personal Energy Centre & The Global Qi Project

james macritchie portrait

A NEW BOOK 'The Adventures of an Acupuncturer -- A Clinical Autobiography of Qigong Acupuncture’ is now available free, by simply clicking on the link in the brown box on the home page of The Personal Energy Centre Global Qi Project website.

Energy is the basis of Life. The better your energy, the better your life. The more energy, the more life. Energy underlies your health, and state of being. This has been understood for 2,000+ years in China where it is called Qigong or Chi Kung – described and presented here. So, to find out how to develop and increase your energy, health & life read on…

THE PERSONAL ENERGY CENTRE is the name of the new practice in Liverpool, England, presenting Qigong, Acupuncture and Tao Studies.

THE GLOBAL QI PROJECT was initiated in 2008, to make the book and programme on Eight Extraordinary Meridians Qigong available to whoever would find it of interest, and more information is provided beneath.

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

New Findings Suggest Acupuncture Stimulation Reduces Systemic Inflammation.

Acupuncture: What You Need To Know.

How the Body and Brain Achieve Carpal Tunnel Pain Relief via Acupuncture.

Gathering Data Points for Acupuncture Research.

15TH World Congress on Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Symposium (2013)

Dr. John Longhurst, M.D. Ph.D. Director of the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine and Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Physiology & Biophysics and Pharmacology at UC Irvine.

There is not much difference between manual and electro-acupuncture (EA). EA is a little stronger and more precise.

Pain threshold can go up with acupuncture and this effect can be blocked with drugs, proving the physiological effects of acupuncture.

70% of experimental subjects are responsive to acupuncture. The 30% who are not responsive are affected by CCK, particularly its octapeptide CCK8, which inhibits the action of opiods in the central nervous system.

Manual stimulation of nerve fibers leads to local chemical production, and this may be responsible for catalyzing remote acupuncture effects. Electroacupuncture has some effect upon hypertension, even four weeks after treatment. Acupuncture points physically migrate, but the effect of needling the moving point stays the same.

Acupuncture Mechanisms: low frequency or manual acupuncture stimulates nerve fibers thus affecting many neuotransmitter systems in the brain and spinal cord, such as the opiod system. Excitatory neurotransmitters include acetylcholine. Example inhibitory neurotransmitters include opioids and serotonin. Acupuncture responsive neurons in the brain can be identified.

The World Health Organization diseases and symptoms for which acupuncture is proven effective include pain, depression, nausea and vomiting, blood pressure abnormalities, and stroke.

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More Peer-Reviewed Acupuncture Research

A neuroanatomical basis for electroacupuncture to drive the vagal–adrenal axis.

Systematic Review: Acupuncture vs Standard Pharmacological Therapy for Migraine Prevention.

Signal Transduction Pathways of Acupuncture for Treating Some Nervous System Diseases.

Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Update of an Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis.

Acupuncture for Treatment of Persistent Disturbed Sleep: A Randomized Clinical Trial in Veterans With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Japanese researchers show that electroacupuncture can decrease blood pressure and heart rate.

Characterizing acupuncture stimuli using brain imaging with FMRI - a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature.

Pain and sensory detection threshold response to acupuncture is modulated by coping strategy and acupuncture sensation.

Acupuncture affects skin blood flow and muscle blood volume.

Acupoints Initiate the Healing Process.

Systematic review finds acupuncture is helpful in managing symptoms in cancer patients.

AcuTrials®: an online database of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews of acupuncture. Database: https://acutrials.ocom.edu.

Proposed catalog of the neuroanatomy and the stratified anatomy for the 361 acupuncture points of 14 channels. In spite of the extensive research on acupuncture mechanisms, no comprehensive and systematic peer-reviewed reference list of the stratified anatomical and the neuroanatomical features of all 361 acupuncture points exists.

Chinese researchers find that acupuncture relieves clinical pain by modulating the brain's default mode network.

Connectomics: A New Direction in Research to Understand the Mechanism of Acupuncture.

Evidence Map of Acupuncture.

Acupuncture modulates the functional connectivity of the default mode network in stroke patients.

Acupuncture, Connective Tissue, and Peripheral Sensory Modulation.

Electrical properties of acupuncture points and meridians: a systematic review.

New findings of the correlation between acupoints and corresponding brain cortices using functional MRI.

Analgesic acupuncture effects outlast the needling period.

Traditional acupuncture triggers a local increase in adenosine in human subjects.

Neurobiological mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia.