Effect of Laser Acupuncture on Heart Rate Variability of Nonpatients and Patients with Spinal Cord Injury

Sensory loss in a complete spinal cord injury (SCI) can be described as an injury that removes the ability of the brain to receive electrical afferent signals generated below the site of the injury. The sensory nervous system appears to be the same as the meridians in the concept of Oriental medicine, thus, we assumed that a complete SCI would lead to discontinuation of the meridians in humans. In this case series report with a cross-sectional view, we observed quantitative changes in heart rate variability induced by laser acupuncture at bilateral GB34 and ST36 points for 15 minutes in eight patients with complete SCIs between the levels of T8 and T12, and eight healthy individuals as a control group. A comparison between pre- and post-treatment data demonstrated that the physiological effect on the heart rate variability was absent when the laser acupuncture was applied below the level of injury among the patients with complete SCI, while the healthy counterparts showed the opposite pattern. The preliminary data suggest that the purported meridian system may not be different from the known sensory nervous system, as the transected spinal cord leads to interrupted meridians. The findings in the present case series warranted further investigation.