Functional Connectivity Modulation by Acupuncture in Patients with Bell’s Palsy

Figure 4

The histogram of functional connectivity strength and the resting fMRI maps of the selected ROIs and their overlapped regions for all groups. We found that the trend of functional connectivity changes induced by acupuncture was consistent with the changes induced by rehabilitation. Reduction of this functional connectivity was observed after acupuncture as well as during recovery process. The -axis represents different groups and -axis represents the functional connectivity strength. “Patient-pre” represents the patient group before acupuncture, “patient-post” represents the patient group after acupuncture, “recovery” represents the recovered group before acupuncture, and “healthy” represents the healthy group before acupuncture. Mean ± SEM, , , and versus “patient-pre.” NS, . ROI, region of interest; L, left; R, right; MFG, middle frontal gyrus; SMA, supplementary motor area; SFG, superior frontal gyrus; MI, primary motor cortex; CMA, cingulate motor area; SI, primary somatosensory cortex.