(image: Korea Bizwire)
DAEJEON, March 25 (Korea Bizwire) — When oriental medicine doctors perform acupuncture treatment, their active interactions with patients help improve the effect of such treatment, a study showed Wednesday.
In collaboration with the Harvard Medical School, the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine carried out a joint clinical test on 23 patients suffering from fibromyalgia for more than one year and 22 acupuncture therapists.
After inducing pain to the patients, the research team applied the electric acupuncture stimulus to ST34 (Liangqiu) and SP10 (Xuehai), the two acupuncture points that influence the improvement the pain.
The research team measured the change in the state of brain simultaneously after installing MRI both on the patients and the therapists.
The results of the test showed that the more active feedback the therapists gave, the less pain the patients experienced.
In particular, more active interactions between patients and therapists led to the activation of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), an area that is associated with the social mirroring effect.
The research team concluded that the active patient-therapist interactions contribute to activating the TPJ and the prefrontal cortex, an area that is associated with the sense of pain, thereby having painkilling effects.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
