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Objective: To observe amplitude changes of low frequency fluctuation in brain spontaneous nervous activities induced by needling at Hand Taiyin Lung Channel, and to preliminarily explore the possible brain function network of Hand Taiyin Lung Channel., Methods: By using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 16 healthy volunteers underwent resting-state scanning (R1) and scanning with retained acupuncture at Hand Taiyin Lung Channel (acupuncture, AP). Data of fMRI collected were statistically calculated using amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF)., Results: Under R1 significantly enhanced ALFF occurred in right precuneus, left inferior parietal lobule, bilateral superior temporal gyrus, bilateral middle frontal gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus. Under AP significantly enhanced ALFF occurred in right precuneus, bilateral superior frontal gyrus, cerebellum, bilateral middle frontal gyrus, right medial frontal gyrus, and so on. Compared with R1, needing at Hand Taiyin Lung Channel could significantly enhance ALFF in right gyrus subcallosum and right inferior frontal gyrus. Significant decreased ALFF appeared in right postcentral gyrus, left precuneus, left superior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, and so on., Conclusion: Needing at Hand Taiyin Lung Channel could significantly change fixed activities of cerebral cortex, especially in right subcallosal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, and so on.

Objective: To observe the effect of acupuncture at the whole points of Hand Jueyin pericardium meridian on the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) of healthy people in resting state (R1) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)., Methods: Totally 16 healthy subjects received structure scan of T1 and T2. Then two fMRI scans were conducted for each participant. fMRI included the resting-state scan (R1; the scanning time was 8 min 6 s), the stimulating-acupoint scan (AP; the scanning time was 8 min 6 s). fMRI data acquisition from structure scanning and function scanning were processed with format conversion and statistical analysis., Results: Under R1 state, brain regions with activated ALFF signals included bilateral superior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, precuneus, superior temporal gyrus, and cingulate gyrus. Under the AP state, brain regions with activated ALFF signals were bilateral superior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, left fusiform gyrus, precuneus, posterior cingulate, and declivis. Compared with R1 state, obvious difference of ALFF signal areas of the brain caused by acupuncture at pericardium were: bilateral cuneus, precuneus, left posterior cingulate gyrus, right middle occipital gyrus, and right occipital lingual gyrus., Conclusion: Acupuncture at the whole points of Hand Jueyin pericardium meridian could significantly change inherent activity states of the cerebral cortex, especially in bilateral superior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and precuneus.

Objectives: This study aims to examine amplitude changes of low-frequency oscillations (fALFF) in the blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal associated with acupuncture on NeiGuan (PC6)., Experimental Design: Ten (10) healthy adults participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (i.e., nuclear medicine; fMRI) study. During the brain-imaging procedure, the participants were instructed to lie quietly; they did not perform any cognitive task., Main Outcome Measures: Three (3) fMRI scans were conducted for each participant: a first resting-state scan (R1), a stimulating-acupoint scan (AP), and a second resting-state scan (R2) after AP. Individual fALFF maps were calculated for each scan., Results: During R1, consistent with previous studies, the default network regions showed significantly detectable fALFF amplitudes. Acupuncture on PC6 increased fALFF amplitudes within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), occipital fusiform gyrus, posterior cingulate cortex, and precuneus (PCC/PCU). In contrast, during R2, fALFF within PCC is still significantly higher than R1 while ACC and cerebellum showed decreased fALFF., Conclusions: These findings imply that stimulating PC6 can change the amplitude of the intrinsic cortical activity of the brain. In particular, a continuous and temporally consistent effect of acupuncture within PCC not the common brain circuit of pain including ACC and cerebellum was observed. Considering the cognitive functions and deficits of the relevant areas in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease, acupuncture on PC6 could potentially affect both psychiatric and neurological disorders. Thus, stimulating PC6 may be a candidate method for improving cognitive impairment.

Spatial smoothing is typically used to denoise magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Gaussian smoothing kernels, associated with heat equations or isotropic diffusion (ISD), are widely adopted for this purpose because of their easy implementation and efficient computation, but despite these advantages, Gaussian smoothing kernels blur the edges, curvature and texture of images. To overcome these issues, researchers have proposed anisotropic diffusion (ASD) and non-local means [i.e., diffusion (NLD)] kernels. However, these new filtering paradigms are rarely applied to MRI analyses. In the current study, using real degraded MRI data, we demonstrated the effect of denoising using ISD, ASD and NLD kernels. Furthermore, we evaluated their impact on three common preprocessing steps of MRI data analysis: brain extraction, segmentation and registration. Results suggest that NLD-based spatial smoothing is most effective at improving the quality of MRI data preprocessing and thus should become the new standard method of smoothing in MRI data processing., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To elucidate the mechanism of angiogenesis after cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) in the aged rats by observing the changes in expressions of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and transformation growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)., Methods: Young Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were classified into groups by random digits table, and aged SD rats were stratified by different body weight. Rats were randomly divided into groups of sham operation, ischemia (I) 3 hours, I/R 1, 3, 6, 12 days, with 6 rats in each group. Focal cerebral I/R model was reproduced by intraluminal filament technique. Microvessel density (MVD) of brain tissue, sum area of lumens were observed, and the expressions of bFGF protein, TGF-β1 protein and TGF-β1 mRNA were assessed with immunohistochemistry and hybridization in situ., Results: MVD in young model group began to increase at I 3 hours, peaking at I/R 6 days, maintained up to I/R 12 days. MVD in aged model group began to descend at I 3 hours and continued to I/R 12 days. Sum area of lumens in young model group increased markedly at I/R 1 day, gradually lowered at I/R 1-6 days, and increased obviously again at I/R 12 days. Sum area of lumens in aged model group reached peak at I/R 1 day, gradually decreased subsequently. MVD in aged sham operation group were higher than that in young sham operation group (6.88±1.60 vs. 5.50±1.53, P<0.01). MVD and sum area of lumens in aged model group at I/R 1, 3, 6, 12 days were lower than young model group. Expressions of bFGF protein, TGF-β1 protein in young and aged model group were both gradually up-regulated, all of them reaching peak at I/R 3 days, and lowered gradually at I/R 3-12 days subsequently. Expressions of bFGF protein (grey level) in both aged sham operation group and those of model group at I 3 hours, I/R 1, 3, 12 days were lower than those of young sham operation and those of the model group at the same time points (176.80±5.10 vs. 172.82±1.53, 171.81±2.43 vs. 167.85±2.41, 167.99±5.51 vs. 164.90±2.15, 152.98±4.11 vs. 150.75±1.11, 165.67±3.55 vs. 161.73±1.29, P<0.05 or P<0.01). Expressions of TGF-β1 protein (grey level) in both aged sham operation and those of model group at I 3 hours, I/R 1, 3, 6, 12 days were all lower than those of young sham operation and those of model group at the same time points (182.69±3.12 vs. 176.13±4.08, 176.89±2.30 vs. 170.56±7.47, 171.74±2.70 vs. 165.43±2.91, 157.17±5.20 vs. 150.43±4.28, 161.72±4.81 vs. 155.37±2.92, 167.69±2.18 vs. 160.28±3.59, all P<0.01). TGF-β1 mRNA expressions in both young model group and aged model group reached peak at I/R 1 day, gradually lowered subsequently. Expressions of TGF-β1 mRNA (gray level) in both aged sham operation and those of model group at I 3 hours, I/R 3, 6, 12 days were lower than those of young sham operation and also model group at the same time points (176.51±9.52 vs. 169.09±5.08, 176.75±5.74 vs. 165.36±4.78, 177.33±5.68 vs. 165.25±8.14, 178.46±4.91 vs. 170.51±4.29, 203.95±4.51 vs. 181.98±5.59, all P<0.01)., Conclusion: Angiogenesis is obviously weak after cerebral I/R in the aged, and the mechanism of which might be related to the down-regulation of expressions of bFGF protein, TGF-β1 protein and TGF-β1 mRNA. Aging factor may be one of the main reasons which induce the down regulation of expressions mentioned above.

Objective: To investigate the relationship of the acupoint and its functional location in the brain., Methods: Ten healthy participants were examined with the resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fM-RI). The scanning includes the resting state 1 (R 1), acupuncture stimulating (AP) Neiguan (PC 6) and the resting state 2 (R 2). All data were analyzed with the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF)., Results: 1) During the R1, the regions with active signal on the ALFF contained bilateral superior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus and some part of cerebellum (including right declive, culme, tonsil and left uvula), as well as left precuneus, right superiour temporal gyrus. 2) As for AP, the active regions with higher ALFF were bilateral superior frontal gyrus and right cuneus, as well as left middle frontal gyrus, declivis and right semi-lunar lobule. 3) The main difference on ALFF between R1 and AP appeared within bilateral cingulated gyrus and declivis, left lingualgurus, and cuneus, as well as right precuneus, fusiform gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus, etc., Conclusion: After acupuncture stimulating the left Neiguan (PC 6), the active regions on ALFF are detected on bilateral cingulated gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus and medial frontal gyrus, as well as bilateral declivis and left lingual gurus, etc. These regions have the close relationship with the mental disorder and nervous diseases, which might be the possible neural mechanism of acupuncture stimulating Neiguan (PC 6) for treating some of related mental disorder and nervous diseases.

Objective: To explore the mechanism of acupoint thread embedding (ATE) in treating Alzheimer's disease (AD) by means of brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)., Methods: Twenty-six patients with mild to moderate AD were assigned to the tested group and the control group in pairing, 13 in each group. ATE was performed in patients of the tested group at Shenmen (HT7), Fenglong (ST40), Taixi (KI3) and Zusanli (ST36) acupoints, once every month for 6 times in total; but for patients of the control group only sham operation was done at the same acupoints. The correlation between cognitive ability and fMRI were assessed by comparing the scores of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Alzhemer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive section (ADAS-Cog), monitored at two time points, namely, in one week before starting treatment and 1 week after terminating 6-month treatment. Furthermore, fMRI was detected to obtain the data of the cerebral blood oxygen content before treatment and 6 months after completing the 6-month therapeutic course. Correlation analysis was conducted on the obtained data using software SPM., Results: After treatment, changes of MMSE score significently increased in the test group (P < 0.01) and decreased in the control group (P < 0.01), and ADAS-Cog decreased in the test group (P < 0.01) and increased in the control group (P < 0.05), showing statistical significance between the two groups (P < 0.01, P < 0.05). The activated regions related with the change of MMSE were mainly inferior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, transverse temporal gyrus, on the left cerebrum and superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, hippocampal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, postcentral gyrus, paracentral lobule on the right cerebrum; those related with change of ADAS-Cog were superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, hippocampal gyrus on the left cerebrum, and superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, fusiform gyrus, transverse temporal gyrus, postcentral gyrus, middle occipital gyrus on the right cerebrum., Conclusion: ATE could improve the cognitive ability of AD patients, its possible mechanism may be through the activation on the cognition related regions of frontal, temporal lobe and marginal system, as well as those of cerebellum.

Objective: To study the effects of Naomaitong Recipe, a compound Chinese herbal medicine, on the expressions of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) and nitric-oxide synthases (NOSs) in brain tissue after focal cerebral ischemia reperfusion in aged rats and the dosage-effect relationship., Methods: We adopted the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in aged rats as the focal cerebral ischemia model, with 3-hour ischemia and 12-day reperfusion, and observed the changes of the nerve dysfunction score, the water content of cerebral constitution and the expressions of NF-kappaB, heat-shock protein 70 (HSP70) and NOSs in cerebral cortex., Results: The nerve dysfunction score, the water content of cerebral constitution, the expressions of NF-kappaB, HSP70, neuronal nitric-oxide synthase (nNOS), endothelial nitric-oxide synthase (eNOS) and inducible nitric-oxide synthase (iNOS) in the untreated group were higher than those of the sham-operated group. The nerve dysfunction score, the water content of cerebral constitution, the expressions of NF-kappaB, iNOS and nNOS were lower, while the expressions of HSP70 and eNOS were higher in the high-, medium- and low-dose Naomaitong-treated groups and nimodipine-treated group than those of the untreated-group. The nerve dysfunction score and the expression of nNOS were lower, while the expression of eNOS was higher in the medium-dose Naomaitong-treated group than those of the nimodipine-treated group. The expressions of HSP70 and eNOS were higher, while the other indices were lower in the medium-dose Naomaitong-treated group than those of the low-dose Naomaitong-treated group., Conclusion: Naomaitong Recipe can protect the brain cells from damage after focal cerebral ischemia reperfusion injury by adjusting the expressions of NF-kappaB, HSP70 and NOSs, and the medium-dose Naomaitong Recipe is more effective.