Different Brain Activation after Acupuncture at Combined Acupoints and Single Acupoint in Hypertension Patients: An Rs-fMRI Study Based on ReHo Analysis

Background. Acupuncture is proved to be effective on hypertension by numerous studies and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (Rs-fMRI) is a widely used technique to study its mechanism. Along with lower blood pressure, patients with hypertension receiving acupuncture also presented improvement in function of cognition, emotion, language, sematic sensation, and so on. This study was a primary study to explore the acting path of acupuncture at combined acupoints in stimulated brain areas related to such functions. Methods. In this research, regional homogeneity (ReHo) was applied to analyze the Rs-fMRI image data of brain activities after acupuncture at LR3, KI3, and LR3