Chinese Acupuncture Affects Brain's Ability To Regulate Pain

According to Science Daily, University of Michigan performed a study that proves that Chinese acupuncture affects the brains ability to regulate pain. The studies participants were 20 females who have fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a common syndrome in which a person has long-term, body-wide pain and tenderness in the joints, muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues. They must of had the syndrome for more than a year and have experienced pain for at least 50 percent of the time. During the study, the participants had to agree not to take any new medication. The patients had eight treatments and had position emission tomography, or PET, scans of the brain during the first treatment and then repeated a month later after the eighth treatment.

A result of the study was that acupuncture increased the binding availability of mu-opoid receptors (MOR) in regions of the brain that process and dampen pain signals – specifically the cingulate, insula, caudate, thalamus and amygdala. There are other medications like painkillers/ morphine that are thought to work by binding to these opioid receptors in the brain and spinal cord. The reduction of pain was associated with the increased binding availability of the receptors.

One possible conclusion of this study is that patients with chronic pain can be treated with acupuncture and they might be more responsive to opioid medications since the receptors seem to have more binding availability. The researchers of this study strongly believe that acupuncture can help reduce chronic pain and can help individuals who are affected by syndromes like fibromyalgia.