• Kuangshi Li, Yong Zhang, Yanzhe Ning, Hua Zhang, Hongwei Liu, Caihong Fu, Yi Ren, and Yihuai Zou.
• Department of Neurology and Stroke Center, Dongzhimen Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, 100700, China, likuangshi89@hotmail.com.
• J Headache Pain. 2015 Jan 1; 16: 518.

BackgroundFunctional and structural abnormalities in resting-state brain networks in migraine patients have been confirmed by previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. However, few studies focusing on the neural responses of therapeutic treatment on migraine have been conducted. In this study, we tried to examined the treatment-related effects of standard acupuncture treatment on the right frontoparietal network (RFPN) in migraine patients.MethodsA total of 12 migraine without aura (MWoA) patients were recruited to undergo resting-state fMRI scanning and were rescanned after 4 weeks standard acupuncture treatment. Another 12 matched healthy control (HC) subjects underwent once scanning for comparison. We analyzed the functional connectivity of the RFPN between MWoA patients and HC subjects before treatment and that of the MWoA patients before and after treatment. Diffusion tensor images (DTI) data analyzing was also performed to detect fiber-related treatment responses.ResultsWe observed significantly decreased FC in the RFPN and that the decreased FC could be reversed by acupuncture treatment. The changes of FC in MWoA patients was negatively correlated with the decrease of visual analogue scale (VAS) scores after treatment. This study indicated that acupuncture treatment for MWoA patients was associated with normalizing effects on the intrinsic decreased FC of the RFPN.ConclusionsOur study provided new insights into the treatment-related neural responses in MWoA patients and suggested potential functional pathways for the evaluation of treatment in MWoA patients. Future studies are still in need to confirm the current results and to elucidate the complex neural mechanisms of acupuncture treatment.

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