Frontiers in neuroscience
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Frontiers in neuroscience · Jan 2019
Differential Influence of Acupuncture Somatosensory and Cognitive/Affective Components on Functional Brain Connectivity and Pain Reduction During Low Back Pain State.
The underlying mechanism of pain reduction by acupuncture is still unclear, because acupuncture treatment involves multidimensional factors. In this study, we investigated the differential influence of acupuncture components on brain functional connectivity and on pain reduction. We used a specific form of sham acupuncture (phantom acupuncture; PHNT), which only has a needling-credibility (a belief that they were treated with real acupuncture needles), while real acupuncture (REAL) has a somatosensory needling stimulation, as well as a needling-credibility. ⋯ Our findings might suggest different brain mechanisms of observed pain reduction; REAL seems to involve detachment of the self from the sensory aspect of pain, while PHNT does to shift attention to self and disengages physical pain processing hubs. This exploratory study proposes a sham methodology to dissociate the influence of different acupuncture components in acupuncture research. Further studies need to be followed with more elaborated hypothesis, study design, and analysis considering various cognitive/affective factors for better understanding of brain mechanisms of pain reduction regarding the different acupuncture aspects.
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Frontiers in neuroscience · Jan 2019
Cerebellar Lobules Optimal Stimulation (CLOS): A Computational Pipeline to Optimize Cerebellar Lobule-Specific Electric Field Distribution.
Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (ctDCS) is challenging due to the complexity of the cerebellar structure which is reflected by the well-known variability in ctDCS effects. Therefore, our objective is to present a freely available computational modeling pipeline for cerebellar lobules' optimal stimulation (CLOS). ⋯ Our freely available CLOS pipeline can be leveraged to optimize electromagnetic stimulation to target cerebellar lobules related to different cognitive and motor functions.