Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Volume 28, Issue 3 , Pages 380-387, April 2010

Exploring vision-related acupuncture point specificity with multivoxel pattern analysis

  • Linling Li

      Affiliations

    • Life Science Research Center, School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
    • ,
  • Wei Qin

      Affiliations

    • Life Science Research Center, School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
    • ,
  • Lijun Bai

      Affiliations

    • Life Science Research Center, School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
    • ,
  • Jie Tian

      Affiliations

    • Life Science Research Center, School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China
    • Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences P.O. Box 2728, Beijing 100190, China. Tel.: +86 010 82618465; fax: +86 010 62527995.

Received 9 June 2009; received in revised form 15 September 2009; accepted 27 November 2009. published online 14 January 2010.

Abstract 

Acupoint specificity is one of the central issues of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of acupuncture and has been under discussed. However, strong and consistent proof has not been provided for the existence of acupoint specificity, and unsuitable analysis approach applied could be the reason. We observed that previous researches of acupoint specificity were mostly based on model-based methods which were limited to make exploration of acupoint specificity because of the inaccurate specified prior. Here we applied multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to investigate the specificity of brain activation patterns induced by acupuncture stimulations at a vision-related acupoint (GB37) and a nearby nonacupoint (NAP). Results showed that multiple brain areas could differentiate the central neural response patterns induced by acupuncture stimulation at these two sites with higher accuracy above the chance level. These regions included occipital cortex, limbic-cerebellar areas and somatosensory cortex. Our results support that the characteristic neural response patterns of brain cortex to the acupuncture stimulation at GB37 and a nearby NAP could differ from each other effectively with the application of MVPA approach.

Keywords: Acupuncture specificity, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, multi-voxel pattern analysis

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PII: S0730-725X(09)00290-2

doi:10.1016/j.mri.2009.11.009

Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Volume 28, Issue 3 , Pages 380-387, April 2010

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