摘要
To investigate whether and how manual acupuncture(MA) modulates brain activities,we design an experiment where acupuncture at acupoint ST36 of the right leg is used to obtain electroencephalograph(EEG) signals in healthy subjects.We adopt the autoregressive(AR) Burg method to estimate the power spectrum of EEG signals and analyze the relative powers in delta(0 Hz-4 Hz),theta(4 Hz-8 Hz),alpha(8 Hz-13 Hz),and beta(13 Hz-30 Hz) bands.Our results show that MA at ST36 can significantly increase the EEG slow wave relative power(delta band) and reduce the fast wave relative powers(alpha and beta bands),while there are no statistical differences in theta band relative power between different acupuncture states.In order to quantify the ratio of slow to fast wave EEG activity,we compute the power ratio index.It is found that the MA can significantly increase the power ratio index,especially in frontal and central lobes.All the results highlight the modulation of brain activities with MA and may provide potential help for the clinical use of acupuncture.The proposed quantitative method of acupuncture signals may be further used to make MA more standardized.
To investigate whether and how manual acupuncture(MA) modulates brain activities,we design an experiment where acupuncture at acupoint ST36 of the right leg is used to obtain electroencephalograph(EEG) signals in healthy subjects.We adopt the autoregressive(AR) Burg method to estimate the power spectrum of EEG signals and analyze the relative powers in delta(0 Hz-4 Hz),theta(4 Hz-8 Hz),alpha(8 Hz-13 Hz),and beta(13 Hz-30 Hz) bands.Our results show that MA at ST36 can significantly increase the EEG slow wave relative power(delta band) and reduce the fast wave relative powers(alpha and beta bands),while there are no statistical differences in theta band relative power between different acupuncture states.In order to quantify the ratio of slow to fast wave EEG activity,we compute the power ratio index.It is found that the MA can significantly increase the power ratio index,especially in frontal and central lobes.All the results highlight the modulation of brain activities with MA and may provide potential help for the clinical use of acupuncture.The proposed quantitative method of acupuncture signals may be further used to make MA more standardized.
基金
Project supported by the Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50537030)
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61072012 and 61172009)
the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61104032 and 60901035)
the Tianjin Municipal Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 12JCZDJC21100)