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BackgroundAcupuncture is increasingly used as an additional treatment for patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).MethodsIn this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, brain activation in response to acupuncture in a group of 12 patients with PD was compared with a group of 12 healthy participants. Acupuncture was conducted on a specific acupoint, the right GB 34 (Yanglingquan), which is a frequently used acupoint for motor function treatment in the oriental medical field.ResultsAcupuncture stimulation on this acupoint activates the prefrontal cortex, precentral gyrus, and putamen in patients with PD; areas that are known to be impaired in patients with PD. Compared with healthy participants, patients with PD showed significantly higher brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and precentral gyrus, especially visible in the left hemisphere.ConclusionsThe neuroimaging results of our study suggest that in future acupuncture research; the prefrontal cortex as well as the precentral gyrus should be treated for symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and that GB 34 seems to be a suitable acupoint. Moreover, acupuncture evoked different brain activations in patients with Parkinson’s disease than in healthy participants in our study, stressing the importance of conducting acupuncture studies on both healthy participants as well as patients within the same study, in order to detect acupuncture efficacy.Trial registrationKCT0001122 at cris.nih.go.kr (registration date: 20140530)Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1472-6882-14-336) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The cun measurement system, an essential and convenient method for locating acupoints, has been widely used in the practice of acupuncture. However, the traditional cun measurement methods have been criticized for their lack of reliability. In addition, new technology has become available to measure the soft tissue and bone mass independently. The present study was conducted in order to determine if one cun, measured by the directional method, is consistent with proportional methods and to investigate whether both methods can be used to locate acupoints. The lengths of bone from several parts of the body in 47 Korean women were measured using Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry. The lengths of each part of the body were compared with 3 cun measured by proportional methods, and the width of all four fingers measured at the level of the proximal inter-phalangeal joint used in the directional method. The results showed that one cun measured by the directional method was significantly different from one cun by proportional methods. The directional method is likely less dependable in locating acupoints than the proportional method.