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Evoked potential assessment of acupunctural analgesia: attempted reversal with naloxone
Richard C Chapman1, Yoko M Colpitts, Costantino Benedetti
1Department of Anesthesiology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Psychology, University of Washington, USA Department of Anesthesiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash. 98195 U.S.A. Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash. 98195 U.S.A. Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Biological Structure, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash. 98195 U.S.A.
Abstract:
The effects of electrical acupunctural stimulation (2 Hz) on pain judgments and evoked potentials are reported for two experiments using dental dolorimetry. In the first experiment subjects received acupuncture at points located in the same neurologic segment as the test tooth. In the second experiment subjects received acupuncture at points on the hands located on acupuncture meridians. In both instances acupuncture resulted in a reduction in pain intensity and smaller evoked potential amplitudes, but naloxone neither reversed the analgesia nor did it affect the evoked potentials. A pilot study was carried out to determine whether manual rather than electrical stimulation would produce an analgesia reversible by naloxone, but it failed to do so. These findings contribute to the growing evidence that acupunctural stimulation significantly reduces pain sensibility in volunteers undergoing dolorimetric testing, but they do not support the hypothesis that endorphin release is a mechanism by which acupuncture exerts analgesia.