While the use of acupuncture as a complementary therapeutic method for treating MCI is popular in certain parts of the world, the underlying mechanism is still elusive. In the current study, we adopted multivariate Granger causality analysis (mGCA) to explore the causal interactions of brain networks involving acupuncture in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients compared to healthy controls (HC). The fMRI experiment was performed with two different paradigms: namely, deep acupuncture (DA) and superficial acupuncture (SA) at acupoint KI3. Results demonstrated that deep acupuncture could modulate the abnormal regions in MCI group. These regions are implicated in memory encoding and retrieving. This may relate to the purported therapeutically beneficial effects of acupuncture for the treatment of MCI. However, the most significant causal interactions were found in the sensorimotor regions in HC group. This may because acupuncture has a greater modulatory effect on patients with a pathological imbalance. This paper provides the preliminary neurophysiological evidence for the potential efficacy effect of acupuncture on MCI.

Date Published: 12 April 2012
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8317, Medical Imaging 2012: Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging, 831705 (12 April 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.910663

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8317:
Medical Imaging 2012: Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging
Robert C. Molthen; John B. Weaver, Editor(s)