ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-1

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-3

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

摘要:

Acupuncture stands on the threshold of acceptance by the medical establishment in the United States. This medical philosophy and practice is challenging the basis of our understandingof health and illness. The history of acupuncture's journey to the West is chronicled in a review of milestones of medical history. The historical journey out of the orient began with Jesuitmissionaries who entered China in the 16th century. By the end of the 19th century, many of France's most prominent physicians were using acupuncture. Probably the most influentialFrench acupuncturist was George Soulie DeMorant, whose text,L'Acupuncture Chinoise(Chinese Acupuncture) was published in 1939. In the United States, acupuncture was first mentioned in the medical literature in 1822, and was endorsed by Sir William Osier for themanagement of lumbago in his text.The Principles and Practice of Medicine, published in 1892. The news report byNew York Timesreporter James Reston in 1971 relating his experience with acupuncture for postoperative pain, sparked massive interest on the part of theAmerican medical community. This interest continues to this day, and more and more physicians and nonphysician health practitioners are involved in the use of acupuncture. With increasinginterest in complementary and alternative medicine, acupuncture will likely be used more commonly, and will also serve to broaden the traditional concepts of health and illness.

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-5

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

摘要:

Acupuncture (and traditional Chinese medicine) is based on philosophico-alchemic theories. The yin/yang theory holds that the universe consists of two opposing forces that complementand supplement each other, resonate harmoniously and are in constant balance. This is the earliest beginning of binary theory. Man is considered a miniature of the universe, and yinand yang in the body are maintained in balance for a healthy state. A disturbance of this balance would result in sickness, comparable to Cannon's concept of homeostasis in Westernmedicine. Qi is the essence or elixir of life, and circulates regularly along the channels (meridians) in the body. Obstruction of the flow of Qi results in illness and pain. Acupuncture issaid to restore this flow as well as the balance of yin and yang. Ancient Chinese astronomers associated the appearance of one of the five orbiting planets with prevalence of certain diseases.They formulated and expanded these astronomical observations into five Xing (element) Theory in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases as well as other aspects of philosophy.At one time they attempted to quantify medical managementa rudimentary effort of computerization of medicine. The ancients also noticed seasonal changes in the prevalenceof diseases as well as diurnal variations of bodily functions. They formulated Ziwu Liuzhu (Midnight-Noon Ebb-Flow) theory to account for such phenomena, an early form of chronobiology.The various techniques of needling are thought to generate therapeutic effects according to the frequency and intensity of stimulation, possibly exerting the release of neurochemicalsand, thus, causing some effect on neuromodulation.

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-11

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

摘要:

It has been more than two decades since reports of acupuncture anesthesia used during surgery in China captured the Western imagination. Since then, some 4000 publications on the topicof acupuncture have been listed in the MEDLINE database. Basic research indicates that acupuncture stimulates neural pathways, and ultimately modulates a variety of neurotransmittersystems, particularly the opioid (endorphin) systems. Clinical research has produced more ambiguous results, suggesting that while acupuncture may have useful effects, they aregenerally mild. Taken as a whole, this body of work has failed to convince the general mainstream Western medical community that acupuncture is clinically useful. This situation ispartly the product of differences between Eastern (prescientific philosophy-based) and Westem (nonholistic mechanistic-based) understandings of acupuncture, which on careful examination,are largely illusory. More promising clinical applications may lie in areas that Western medicine does not currently address well, such as long-term health maintenance, treatingslowly developing diseases, or treating chronic conditions. If acupuncture is to assume a role in Western medicine, it is important to identify one or more specific conditions to which itis suited, and establish treatment efficacy using properly designed multisite clinical studies.

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-25

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

摘要:

Our understanding of the neural circuits underlying pain sensation has advanced significantly in the past decade. Potentially tissue-damaging stimuli activate peripheral receptors inall pain-sensitive tissues. This sets in motion a cascade of neural activity in the gray matter of the spinal cord. Ascending pathways activate the brain stem, thalamus, amygdala, and cortexleading to the sensation of pain. Separate pathways mediate the sensory and emotional or suffering components of pain. In addition to pain transmission, modulation of the painmessage is an important function that is mediated by a set of neural circuits that are distinct from the transmission pathways. Modulatory pathways include those that can be activatedby somatosensory stimuli, such as occurs with acupuncture and other pathways that mediate the effects of psychological factors and analgesic medications.

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-41

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

摘要:

Acupuncture is an ancient therapeutic technique that has been extensively used in China for analgesia as well as for treatment of a variety of medical disorders. In this paper, we describethe potential use of various functional brain imaging techniques in the study of the effects of acupuncture. Five subjects with chronic pain had measures of cerebral blood flow obtainedusing single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) both before (baseline) and after acupuncture. The baseline scans revealed asymmetric uptake in the thalami in all fivecases. In four cases, the asymmetry was marked (three with right greater than left, and one left greater than right), while the last case revealed a bilateral increase in the thalami. In twopatients, basal ganglia uptake was asymmetric with one patient having an increase in the left putamen and the other in the right caudate. The post-acupuncture scans revealed marked increasesin the brainstem uptake and a tendency for normalization of the asymmetric thalamic and basal ganglia activity observed at baseline. They also showed that acupuncture analgesiais associated with unequivocal changes in the activity of the brainstem, as well as the thalami. The results from these cases show that there are changes in cerebral blood flow associatedwith pain and acupuncture analgesia that correspond to the area believed to be involved in such phenomena.

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-47

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-55

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

摘要:

"Energy" medicine modalities such as acupuncture probably do not act on the body-mind by virtue of their energy content, which is minute. An extended concept of information, meaning"that which informs," is proposed as a new way of thinking about how these medical modalities may work at various levels of organization in humans. This concept includes electromagneticbioinformation, but may also go beyond it to include information conveyed by other fields more subtle than electromagnetic, which may be intimately involved with life.Research from bioelectromagnetics and an extended concept of information in biology also offer the gift of new questions for research. Further development along these lines may befruitful toward a scientific foundation of acupuncture and other energy medicine modalities.

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-67

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL

摘要:

Possible links between bioelectromagnetism and acupuncture are explored. The current status of research activities in bioelectromagnetism is reviewed, with particular emphasis on theemerging role of the geomagnetic field in weak-field biological interactions. We suggest that experiments be designed to study the functional dependence of acupuncture on the local magnetostaticfield. We also suggest revisiting the earlier work in electrobiology by Burr, Lund, Becker, and others. This type of research, establishing the likelihood of functional endogenouselectric fields in biosystems, has been neglected in recent years. The continuation of such studies may be the most reasonable direction to pursue in searching out the physiologicalbasis for acupuncture.

ISSN:1075-5535    

DOI:10.1089/acm.1997.3.s-77

出版商:Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.    

年代:1997

数据来源: MAL