Study on brain FMRI of the mechanism of tuina analgesia

Abstract

According to clinical data, a lot of patients suffering from chronic pain like to be pressed on the tenderness point, and after Tuina they feel apparently better. Some patients even come back frequently to receive further Tuina treatment afer their pain has relieved. So to research on the intervention of the therapy of pressing and kneading on the tenderness point in chronic pain and the mechanism of Tuina analgesia by using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Five patients with one-sided fits of lumbar disc herniation (LDH) were selected according to single-blind randomized experimental method. FMRI was applied to observe the activation and inhibition of brain-functioning area in five cases of patients with lumbar disc herniation after pressing and kneading on their Weizhong (B40 )point. Every patient must finish 11 trials in the experiment. Functional MRI data were obtained from scanning the whole brain, but focusing on ACG, hypothalamus, NAC, amygdaloid body GOB etc. T-test was performed to analyze the data in SPSS software package. The data sets from 5 subjects were all used in the study. Signal increases and signal decreases elicited by Tuina stimulation were demonstrated in multiple brain regions. After pressing and kneading on the patient's Weizhong (B40 ) acupoint, the patient's hypothalamus, left nucleus accumbens and left amygdaloid body were excited (P<0.05) and his left anterior cingulated gyrus was inhibited (P<0.05). By pressing and kneading on the pain point (B40), both the pain circuity and the reward circuity are affected which indicates that there might be a close correlation between the effects of analgesia and pleasure through Tuina. And this might also be one of the reasons why clinical Tuina patients with chronic pain like to be pressed on their pain points. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.