Decreased peripheral and central responses to acupuncture stimulation following modification of body ownership e109489

Younbyoung Chae, In Seon Lee, Won Mo Jung, Dong Seon Chang, Vitaly Napadow, Hyejung Lee, Hi Joon Park, Christian Wallraven

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Acupuncture stimulation increases local blood flow around the site of stimulation and induces signal changes in brain regions related to the body matrix. The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is an experimental paradigm that manipulates important aspects of bodily self-awareness. The present study aimed to investigate how modifications of body ownership using the RHI affect local blood flow and cerebral responses during acupuncture needle stimulation. During the RHI, acupuncture needle stimulation was applied to the real left hand while measuring blood microcirculation with a LASER Doppler imager (Experiment 1, A/ = 28) and concurrent brain signal changes using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; Experiment 2, Af = 17). When the body ownership of participants was altered by the RHI, acupuncture stimulation resulted in a significantly lower increase in local blood flow (Experiment 1), and significantly less brain activation was detected in the right insula (Experiment 2). This study found changes in both local blood flow and brain responses during acupuncture needle stimulation following modification of body ownership. These findings suggest that physiological responses during acupuncture stimulation can be influenced by the modification of body ownership.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere109489
JournalPloS one
Volume9
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014 Oct 6

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
  • Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all)
  • General

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