Research Article

Neuronal Specificity of Acupuncture in Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment Patients: A Functional MRI Study

Table 3

Brain regions showing abnormal activities by acupuncture stimulation (compared with the resting state) at real or sham acupuncture points in MCI patients.

GroupBrain regionsActivityBASideCluster size MNI coordinatesT -value
xyz

MCI with real acupuncture point stimulationSupramarginal+/L38-63-30279.26
Frontal_Mid+/R203951245.71
Temporal_Sup+/L17-48-30125.36
Rolandic_Oper+/L216-33-33154.85
Cerebellum_4_5+/L42-12-54-154.80
Frontal_Inf_Oper+/R24511264,50
Parietal_Inf-40L20-51-6045-3.52

MCI with sham acupuncture point stimulationVermis_6+/L246-57-247.02
Cerebellum_Crus1+/L35-30-75-305.75
Precentral-/L54-33-2160-4.04
Precentral-/L140-48615-4.10

The peak voxel for each cluster and the corresponding name of the anatomical region are given. “+” represents increased activities during the period of acupuncture stimulation from resting state, whereas “-” represents decreased ones. BA: Brodmann area. The maximum P value for voxels was 0.01 and all surviving voxels had an adjusted P value <0.05.