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This chapter will review the history of modern acupuncture research in China. The concept of “channels” and “collaterals” has been used for a long time in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Clinical acupuncture yields therapeutic effects on many diseases, according to the general principles of “channels” and “collaterals”. In the past 5 decades, acupuncture research has been very popular in many...
Acupoints, the sites on the body for acupuncture therapy, have relatively special structure that receives the acupuncture signals. Anatomically, acupoints have abundant nerves, muscles, vessels, and tendon. Histologically, there are various kinds of free nerve endings, receptors, Ruffini corpuscles, Meissner corpuscles, Krause corpuscles, lamellated corpuscles, and muscle spindle around the acupoints...
Acupuncture, one of the most prevalent methodologies of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), has been used in Asian countries for curing numerous diseases for thousands of years. However, the true mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of acupuncture are still under debating. The meridian model based on TCM has been used so far, for guiding the practice of acupuncture. In this model, acupuncture is...
It has been accepted that acupuncture at certain points on the body induces analgesia/anesthesia and therapeutic effects on certain diseases. The mechanistic research demonstrates that acupuncture effects are mediated by the central neurotransmitters. Among them, the endogenous opioid peptides (EOP) play an important role in acupuncture effects. In general, acupuncture activates the EOP system by...
Acupuncture research, especially the mechanistic investigations on acupuncture analgesia, has yielded abundant information showing that acupuncture signal, either generated by manual acupuncture or electroacupuncture (Ea), remarkably influences the release, synthesis, reuptake, and degradation of the central neurotransmitters/modulators, including monoamines (e.g., serotonin, noradrenalin, and dopamine),...
In this chapter, the clinical and experimental studies on acupuncture-drug balanced anesthesia will be reviewed. The history of acupuncture anesthesia in China started in 1958. After two decades of clinical practice and experimental investigation, the combination of acupuncture (usually electro-acupuncture, EA) with drugs has been successfully used to improve anesthesia for surgical operations and...
As one of the most important complementary and alternative modalities, acupuncture has been used worldwide in pain relief at bedside. Substantial and accumulating clinical evidences show that acupuncture produces analgesic effects in various acute/chronic pain conditions. In this chapter, we will summarize the clinical research of acupuncture-induced analgesic effects on various pain disorders, especially...
Electroacupuncture (EA) stimulation has immediate or cumulative (therapeutic) effects on acute pain and chronic pain in various experimental models. This chapter summarizes the mechanistic exploration of EA analgesia. The analgesic effect of EA on acute and chronic pain involves multi-synaptic pathways and various neurotransmitters/neuromodulators including endogenous opioid peptides, glutamate, glial...
In this chapter, we shall review the clinic application of acupuncture treatment on stroke, and the mechanistic research on animal models of ischemic brain infarction. Acupuncture has been employed to treat patients with stroke in China as well as other oriental countries. Clinical data suggest that patients show better outcome and require less nursing and rehabilitation therapy after acupuncture...
This chapter reviews the clinical and laboraotry research on acupuncture therapies for arrhythmia and other cardiac diseases (e.g., coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, heart failure, and viral myocarditis). Clinical data suggest that the efficacy of acupuncture therapy varies depending on multiple factors, including the type of diseases, acupoints selected, and the manner of manipulation used...
This chapter summarizes the clinical practice and mechanistic exploration of acupuncture therapy for hypertension and hypotension. Numerous clinical reports have shown that the therapeutic efficacy of acupuncture on abnormal blood pressure is dependent on the acupoints, acupuncture manipulation or stimulation parameters in the case of electroacupuncture, applying window, times of treatment, and other...
Acupuncture has been used for suppression of epileptic seizure for more than two thousand years in Chinese medicine. Also, significant progress towards elucidating the biological basis of the acupuncture suppression has been made in the past several decades. This chapter will summarize the clinical applications and the experimental studies on acupuncture therapy for epilepsy. The therapeutic methods...
This chapter summarizes the clinical practice of acupuncture therapy for immune-mediated disorders and the mechanisms underlying the regulation of neuroimmune function by acupuncture. Numerous data indicate that acupuncture can regulate immune system, tune-up specific and nonspecific cellular and humoral immunity, and modulate leucocytosis, microbicidal activity, antibodies, globulin, complement,...
Although the mechanism of acupuncture therapy is not yet well understood, substantial evidence has shown that acupuncture produces prominent therapeutic effects on woman infertility, and acupuncture combined with assisted reproduction technology (ART) is observed to markedly enhance the pregnancy rate of the infertile woman treated with “in vitro fertilization” or “intracytoplasmic sperm injection”...
This chapter summarizes the clinical practice and mechanistic exploration of acupuncture therapy for menopausal and perimenopausal syndrome. Accumulating clinic data suggest that acupuncture is an effective and economical therapy for menopausal and perimenopausal syndrome. The mechanistic research has developed the idea that acupuncture signals initiated at the acupoints are transferred to the brain...
This chapter will introduce the research progress on the clinical application of acupuncture for smoking cessation and the underlying mechanism. The commonly used acupoints, acupuncture methods, and combination with other therapies will be briefly summarized with comments on their efficacy. Several lines of evidence show that acupuncture significantly improve the withdrawal symptoms. The mechanistic...
This chapter presents the clinical and laboratory evidence regarding the effect of acupuncture on depression and its potential mechanisms. Most of the clinical studies have demonstrated that either acupuncture alone or acupuncture combined with other therapies has a therapeutic effect on subjects with depression. There were significant differences in the scores of Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression...
This chapter summarizes the advancement of clinical acupuncture for drug addiction and the basic research on its mechanisms. The applications of auriculo-acupuncture, body acupuncture, electroacupuncture (EA), acupuncture with Han’s acupoint nerve stimulator (HANS), and combination therapy will be briefly introduced with comments on their efficacy. Although, the mechanisms underlying the acupuncture...
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