Longitudinal Brain Functional Connectivity Changes of the Cortical Motor-Related Network in Subcortical Stroke Patients with Acupuncture Treatment

Abstract

In clinical practice, the effectiveness of the rehabilitation therapy such as acupuncture combining conventional Western medicine (AG) on stroke people's motor-related brain network and their behaviors has not been systematically studied. In the present study, seventeen adult ischemic patients were collected and divided into two groups: the conventional Western medicine treatment group (CG) and the AG. The neurological deficit scores (NDS) and resting-state functional MRI data were collected before and after treatment. Compared with the CG patients, AG patients exhibited a significant enhancement of the percent changes of NDS from pre- to posttreatment intervention. All patients showed significant changes of functional connectivity (FC) between the pair of cortical motor-related regions. After treatment, both patient groups showed a recovery of brain connectivity to the nearly normal level compared with the controls in these pairs. Moreover, a significant correlation between the percent changes of NDS and the pretreatment FC values of bilateral primary motor cortex (M1) in all patients was found. In conclusion, our results showed that AG therapy can be an effective means for ischemic stroke patients to recover their motor function ability. The FC strengths between bilateral M1 of stroke patients can predict stroke patients' treatment outcome after rehabilitation therapy.

Different Brain Activation after Acupuncture at Combined Acupoints and Single Acupoint in Hypertension Patients: An Rs-fMRI Study Based on ReHo Analysis

“…Ones are based on conventional therapy. For example, Li et al observed increased functional connectivity of acupuncture in addition to western medicine group from pre- and posttreatment for stroke [12]. The others compared either the differences of functional brain activities changes between acupoints combination and sham acupoints on patients [13] or acupoints combination manipulation on patients and the healthy controls [14, 15].…”

Acupuncture Enhances Communication between Cortices with Damaged White Matters in Poststroke Motor Impairment

“…Acupuncture could modulate interhemispheric and intrahemispheric FC among multiple cortical motor areas, implicating brain plasticity in the motor-related network in a stroke with a unilateral subcortical lesion [58, 59]. For instance, acupuncture intervention can improve declined FC between the bilateral M1 in stroke patients [22].…”

Effect of acupuncture and its influence on cerebral activity in patients with persistent asthma: study protocol for a randomized controlled clinical trial

“…Central integration has been considered as an essential mechanism acupuncture's therapeutic effect since the 1970s [27,28]. In the past 20 years, with the aid of functional brain imaging techniques such as fMRI, positron emission tomography, electroencephalography, and magnetoencephalography [29], investigators have mapped the cerebral regions/circuits/networks participating in acupuncture effects for treating neuropathies [30][31][32][33], gastrointestinal disorders [34][35][36], and motor diseases [37,38]. These studies provided abundant visual evidence for understanding the central mechanism of acupuncture.…”