Neurophysiological basis of acupuncture analgesia

This article presents a view about the neural mechanism of acupuncture analgesia and the clinical and experimental evidences on which this view is based. The analgesic effect of acupuncture is considered essentially a manifestation of the interaction of afferent impulses from the region of pain and those from the point of acupuncture. It begins with a general information leading to the development of this sensory interaction theory in interpretation of acupuncture analgesia. The nature of the acupuncture feeling, the receptors activated by acupuncture, the types of fibers involved in transmission of the afferent impulses produced by acupuncture and the processes of interaction taking place at different levels of the central nervous system are described with particular reference to the integrative action of extralemniscal system including the bulbar reticular formation and the intralaminar structures of thalamus. The possible rôle played by the putative synaptic neurotransmitters such as serotonin is only very briefly mentioned.