Functional Connectivity Modulation by Acupuncture in Patients with Bell's Palsy.

Functional Connectivity Modulation by Acupuncture in Patients with Bell's Palsy. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2016;2016:5928758 Authors: Bian Y, He X, Hu S, Li C, Xu C, Kan H, Xue Q, Yang J, Qiu B Abstract Bell's palsy (BP), an acute unilateral facial paralysis, is frequently treated with acupuncture in many countries. However, the mechanism of treatment is not clear so far. In order to explore the potential mechanism, 22 healthy volunteers and 17 BP patients with different clinical duration were recruited. The resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were conducted before and after acupuncture at LI4 (Hegu), respectively. By comparing BP-induced functional connectivity (FC) changes with acupuncture-induced FC changes in the patients, the abnormal increased FC that could be reduced by acupuncture was selected. The FC strength of the selected FC at various stages was analyzed subsequently. Our results show that FC modulation of acupuncture is specific and consistent with the tendency of recovery. Therefore, we propose that FC modulation by acupuncture may be beneficial to recovery from the disease. PMID: 27293461 [PubMed]
Source: Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine - Category: Complementary Medicine Tags: Evid Based Complement Alternat Med Source Type: research