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The Chinese therapy acupuncture deactivates pathways that govern pain. According to a recent research, acupuncture works by making the brain, rather than the body, no longer experience pain. The brains of volunteers when studied were found to have the pain pathways deactivated on application of the therapy.
Complementary medicine expert Dr Hugh MacPherson, of the University of York, said, "These results provide objective scientific evidence that acupuncture has specific effects within the brain which hopefully will lead to a better understanding of how acupuncture works."
The findings were published in the Brain Research. They suggest that acupuncture has a major effect on specific nerve structures.
Dr MacPherson and colleagues explicated that acupuncture treatment creates a sensation called deqi on the patient undergoing the therapy. Scientific analysis showed these changes areas within the brain that are connected with the processing of pain.
Dr MacPherson said, "We carried out two tests of acupuncture on our participants, one where the needles are inserted at a shallow depth which is the practise in Japan and the other where they went in much deeper which is the Chinese tradition.”
"We found 10 out of the 17 experienced 'deqi' while the others didn't, and this appeared to help in deactivating areas in the brain that are associated with pain.”
"The Chinese have been using acupuncture for 2,000 years for wide ranging illnesses but we have only touched the surface at the moment.”
"We believe it can help relieve a number of conditions, including depression which we have recruited 640 people for another study where half will receive acupuncture and the others counselling."
NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) had recommended acupuncture for the first time last summer as a treatment option for NHS patients with lower back pain.
NICE Guidelines now state that General practitioners should "consider offering a course of acupuncture comprising a maximum of ten sessions over a period of up to twelve weeks" for patients with this common condition.
Explaining the results of new research, co-researcher Dr Aziz Asghar, a neuroscientist at Hull York Medical School, added, "The results are fascinating. Whether such brain deactivations constitute a mechanism which underlies or contributes to the therapeutic effect of acupuncture is an intriguing possibility which requires further research."
