Neural Encoding of Acupuncture Needling Sensations: Evidence from a fMRI Study
Figure 5
Brain positive (yellow) and negative (blue) bold responses associated with the intensity of individual needling sensation during acupuncture stimulation. The individual sensations are pressure (a), heaviness (b), fullness (c), numbness (d), and tingling (e). The brain regions associated with differential individual sensation are partly overlapped, such as bilateral ACC, right lateral prefrontal cortex (OrG, orbital gyrus), bilateral medial temoral cortex (Hi, hippocampus; PHG, parahippocampal gyrus), and bilateral posterior parietal cortex (IPS, intraparietal sulcus). (a) Pressure contributed to the negative activity in the LPNN network and showed symmetric distributions, such as ACC and PHG. (b) Heaviness showed positive activity in the bilateral ACC, right superior temporal gyrus (STG), and right OrG and negative activity in the bilateral IPS. Heaviness and pressure showed anticorrelated impact on the regions mentioned previously. (c) Fullness was associated with the negative activity in the right ACC and OrG and the positive activity in the right IPS. (d) Numbness showed positive activity in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG), right anterior middle cingulate cortex (aMCC), and bilateral IPS and negative activity in the left hippocampus (Hi), left PHG, and medulla oblongata (MO). (e) Tingling showed positive activity in the posterior corpus callosum (CC) but negative activity in the posterior parietal cortex (IPS). Tingling and numbness showed anticorrelated impact on bilateral IPS, left Hi, and left PHG.
