Mol Pain
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Functional acupoint specificity is crucial to the clinical efficacy of acupuncture treatment, such as pain relief. Whether acupuncture needling at a peripheral acupoint produces distinct patterns of brain responses remains controversial. ⋯ This study provided an integrated view exploring the functional specificity of acupuncture in which both the needling sensation and the following neural cascades may contribute to the overall effect of acupuncture through dynamic reconfiguration of complex neural networks.fMRI, acupoints, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, temporal-spatial encoding, resting-state networks.