the problem of metal needles in acupuncture-fmri studies金属针acupuncture-fmri研究的问题.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2011, Article ID 808203, 5 pages doi:10.1155/2011/808203 Research Article The Problem of Metal Needles in Acupuncture-fMRI Studies 1, 2 ¨ 1 3 Florian Beissner, Ulrike Noth, and Thomas Schockert 1 Brain Imaging Center, Goethe University, 60325 Frankfurt, Germany 2 Department of Neurology, Goethe University, 60325 Frankfurt, Germany 3 Department of Chinese Medicine, Witten/Herdecke Private University, 58448 Witten, Germany Correspondence should be addressed to Florian Beissner, coffeefellow@ Received 25 October 2010; Accepted 11 January 2011 Copyright © 2011 Florian Beissner et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Acupuncture is a therapy based on sensory stimulation of the human body by means of metal needles. The exact underlying mechanisms of acupuncture have not been clarified so far. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become an important tool in acupuncture research. Standard acupuncture needles, which are made of ferromagnetic steel, however, are problematic in acupuncture-fMRI studies for several reasons, such as attraction by the scanner’s magnetic field, significant image distortions and signal-dropouts, when positioned close to the head or even heating due to absorption of radio frequency (RF). The aim of this study was to compare two novel types of acupuncture needles with a standard needle for their effect on MRI image