Detecting Intrinsic Movements through Needle Tips Pinned at Zusanli ST-36 Point - a New Method for Characterizing Structures for Acupuncture Treatments

This study aims to investigate the characteristics of the observed intrinsic movements of needle tips pinned at the Zusanli ST-36 acupuncture point. The specificity of acupuncture points is an important principle underlying the acupuncture treatments and is closely related to the characteristics of some structures attributable to their therapeutic effects. The movements of needle tips pinned at the acupuncture and control points in rats were video recorded, and the position data were analyzed by using the power spectrum and the autocorrelation function. The power spectra in the frequency domain showed main peaks due to oscillations transferred from heart and lung movements, and the spectra showed no distinctive differences between the ST-36 and the control points. The autocorrelation function in the time domain, on the other hand, had different times for the first zero point in the envelope of the oscillating signals: 0.26±0.20 minutes for the ST-36 site and 0.80±0.61 minutes for the control site. The time difference was 0.54±0.45 minutes, which was statistically significant with a p-value = 0.002 from the paired t-test. The results of this study imply that the intrinsic movements transferred to the needle tips pinned at the ST-36 site are more disturbed by some internal mechanical factors than those transferred to the needle tips at the control site are and that the modernized method developed in this study may be a new tool for characterizing structures for acupuncture treatments.