Preliminary results of a new method for locating auricular acupuncture points

Auricular acupuncture is widely used for the treatment of cocaine addiction, and there is an urgent need to conduct controlled clinical research of this intervention. One impediment to this endeavor is the lack of an objective and reliable method for identifying the hypothesized active and control points. In order to address this issue, we conducted two studies employing a constant current electrical device and a novel probing technique. In the first study, we assessed the reliability of our technique for measuring electrical skin resistance points (acupuncture or non-acupuncture) on the body and auricles. In the second study, we analyzed and compared the measurements of skin resistance of auricular acupuncture and control zones in a group of cocaine abusing patients. Findings suggest that our measurement method produced reliable measurements, and that active acupuncture zones revealed a significantly different pattern of electrical skin resistance readings compared to control zones. This method may be useful for locating active and control points in controlled clinical trials of auricular acupuncture.