Acupuncture-induced migraine relieving is related to acupoint specificity

Migraine is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent moderate and severe headache aggravated by stressors. The pain is usually pulsating and unilateral and is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, phonophobia or photophobia. Migraine, occurring generally in younger people of working age, imposes significant economic, healthcare and social costs. Although many migraine patients benefit in some aspects the medication they also continue to experience discomfort, interference with activities of daily life, and other adverse effects from pharmacological treatments.

Acupuncture has been widely used to treat migraine in China. Acupuncture treatment is very effective in alleviating pain with minimal side effects and cost saving. Acupuncture-induced migraine relieving is now popular in Western countries. Many clinical studies focused on migraine have reported with mixed results. One of the key issues is acupuncture point specificity. Some clinical studies reported a definitive specific effect of alleviating migraine, while other studies showed non-specific effects of acupuncture on relieving migraine.

One of approaches to define acupoint specificity is brain imaging such as positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography (PET/CT) which exhibits specific neuronal activity following acupuncture stimulation. In a recent study, patients with migraine were enrolled to investigate acupoint specificity using PET/CT. Patients were divided into treatment group and control group. Patients in treatment group received stimulation at specific acupoints of Shaoyang meridians, which is traditionally used to treat migraine. In control group acupoints on Yangming meridians, which are less used for migraine treatment according to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, were stimulated. At the end of treatment patients in treatment group showed greater pain reduction than patients in control group. PET/CT showed a higher brain metabolism in the middle temporal cortex and orbital frontal cortex and cerebellum in treatment group compared with control group. These findings are in favour of the functional specificity of migraine-treatment-related-acupoints.

Reference:

J Yang et al. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2012, 12:123.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/12/123