Recently, the growing ability to obtain images of the brain in patients experiencing pain under different conditions has dramatically changed the traditional views and understanding of chronic pain and pain processing.
More psychological approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfullness have been widely accepted as treatment methods for chronic pain.
How about acupuncture?
Many people may think acupuncture is the same as dry needling which aims to release muscle tension and to increase blood flow locally.Therefore, the psychological approach is difficult with acupuncture.
Many acupuncturists argue that acupuncture is different from dry needling because it uses the meridian and qi. Therefore, it can be used for the psychological approach.
However, there has been no convincing scientific evidence to prove the existence of the meridian or qi.
The interesting neuroscientific research project on acupuncture using MEG (Magnetoencephalography) has been running since 2017 in Japan.
Last year, I attended the panel discussion about this project. The project leader stated that the meridian does exist.
However, it does not exist as the physical structure like blood vessels but as a map in the specific part of the brain.
Acupuncture points work as the access points to this map.
He also said that it's network and effect could be visualized and quantified.