Tai Chi and its anti-inflammatory effect on the peripheral blood leukocytes

Purpose: From the perspective of neuroscience, acupuncture-induced sensation is not only coming from the bottom-up modulation of ‘simple needling’ in the somatosensory receptor, but also from the reciprocal interaction with the topdown modulation of the brain. Enhanced body schema triggered by acupuncture stimulation can influence the homeostatic control system through a modulated salience network of the brain. We investigated commonalities and differences in brain responses to enhanced bodily attention around the acupuncture points with or without actual stimulation. Methods: Fourteen participants received acupuncture needles at both PC6 (median nerve) and HT7 (ulnar nerve) acupoints in the left hand. To enhance bodily attention to acupoints, participants were required to respond to the locations of stimulations at PC6 or HT7 in a two alternative-forced choice task. Two fMRI scans were taken in a block design: session 1 labeled withmanual stimulation (actual stimulation with randomized acupoint stimulation) and session 2 labeled with electro-acupuncture (no physical stimulation; pseudostimulation). To compare cortical activation patterns, data were analyzed using the freesurfer software. Results: In the conjunction analysis, both actual and pseudo-stimulation produced brain activations in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, superior parietal cortex, and brain deactivations in themedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, inferior parietal cortex, and the parahippocampus. In the contrast analysis, actual stimulation exhibited greater brain activations inposterior insula, posterior operculumand the caudal part of anterior cingulate cortex, compared to pseudo-stimulation. Conclusion:We demonstrated that enhanced bodily attention triggered by acupuncture stimulation is able to activate the salience network and deactivate the default mode network regardless of actual stimulation. Our findings suggest that the component of enhanced attention to a certain part of the body plays an important role in the brain responses to acupuncture stimulation. Contact: Younbyoung Chae, ybchae@khu.ac.kr