Tuesday Bits and Bytes: East Meets West With fMRI of Acupuncture
A study out of Essen, Germany presented today at RSNA pits traditional Eastern medicine against Western evaluation, using functional MRI to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture. When 18 patients underwent fMRI with an electric pain stimulus but without acupuncture, the modality revealed significant activation in the areas of the brain that process pain; however, when the same procedure was performed with acupuncture, these areas of the brain were significantly less active. “Until now, the role of acupuncture has been controversial,” said lead researcher Nina Theysohn, MD, of the radiology department at Essen’s University Hospital. “Our findings support that both
