fMRI Study on the Brain Activity Induced by Manual Acupuncture at BL62

Recently, the effect of acupuncture was approved not only in the East but also in the West, so the interest on acupuncture has greatly been improved. Especially, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was embossed as the tool for studying the mechanism of acupuncture noninvasively and many studies on the mechanism of acupuncture using fMRI were carried out. Here, we acquired 9 fMRI results from 6 persons (age 20–30, 4 male and 2 female) to study the brain activity for motor function by acupuncture at the left BL62. We employed the block design for mapping brain activity. We proceeded to study the brain activity for motor function by acupuncture at BL62. In the result of this study, the regions showed significant activation in the cerebellum was centered on the spinocerebellum in the anterior lobe, so we presumed that this result showed the input of stimulation by acupuncturing on BL62. Unexpectedly basal ganglia and cerebral cortex showed the regions of significant activation in the left rather than in the right. This result explains that acupuncture on BL62 could have an influence on the motor function of cerebellum and could affect the right side through the activation of the left basal ganglia and cerebral cortex. We think of this result as the evidence which could explain the theory of crossing needling at collaterals.