The potential associations between acupuncture sensation and brain functional network: a EEG study

Acupuncture has been widely used as an effective treatment for post-stroke rehabilitation. However, the potential association between acupuncture sensation, an important factor influencing treatment efficacy, and brain functional network is unclear. This research sought to reveal and quantify the changes in brain functional network associated with acupuncture sensation. So multi-channel EEG signals were collected from 30 healthy participants and the Massachusetts General Hospital Acupuncture Sensation Scale (MASS) was utilized to assess their needling sensations. Phase Lag Index (PLI) was used to construct the brain functional network, which was analyzed with graph theoretic methods. It showed that in the needle insertion (NI) state the MASS Index was significantly higher than in the needle retention (NR) state (P < 0.001), and the mean values of PLI were also higher than in the Pre-Rest state and NR state significantly (P < 0.01). In the NI state global efficiency, local efficiency, nodal efficiency, and degree centrality were significantly higher than in the Pre-Rest state and the NR state (P < 0.05), while the opposite is true for the shortest path length (P < 0.01). Then Pearson correlation analysis showed a correlation between MASS Index and graph theory metrics (P < 0.05). Finally, Support Vector Regression (SVR) was used to predict the MASS Index with a minimum mean absolute error of 0.65. These findings suggest that the NI state of acupuncture treatment changes the structure of the brain functional network and affects the graph theory metrics of the brain functional network, which may be an objective biomarker for quantitative evaluation of acupuncture sensation.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11571-025-10233-1.