Brain imaging research with sham and real acupuncture.

[Guest guest]

I was helping prepare a grant and had to convince some Onco's why sham

acupuncture can be as effective as regular acupuncture. What I found

out amazed me.

 

Sham acupuncture shows almost the same brain activity pattern as real

acupuncture. The explanation is expectation. Yes expectation. If

you think you are getting real acupuncture than you pretty much are.

The only way to make a difference between real and sham is to get de

qi than the brain activity is different.

 

 

> http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?

> tool=pubmed & pubmedid=17267130

>

> http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1193550

> It appears that there are substantial overlaps between the pain

> matrix that have already been identified within the brain and its

> response to placebo acupuncture and pain. There is also

> considerable overlap between the areas of placebo response and

> expectation and acupuncture, although a recent study of brain

> activation with PET involving patients in pain, by Pariente et al.

> (30), have clearly identified different areas of activation in

> response to touch with a needle, the expectation of acupuncture and

> real acupuncture, suggesting that real acupuncture not only

> activates areas associated with expectation and placebo response

> but also the ipsilateral insula that may represent a specific

> response to acupuncture in patients presenting with osteoarthritis

> pain. However, it does appear that there is a relatively `plastic'

> pain matrix within the brain that is equally responsive to placebo

> and acupuncture with many overlapping areas. This might correlate

> quite closely with the large non-specific effects observed from

> many analgesic treatments, including acupuncture, in a clinical

> context (31,32).