First Objective Evidence Produced That Acupuncture Is Effective

A relatively new imaging technique has produced the first objective evidence that acupuncture works, a team from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey reported Wednesday at a Chicago meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. The technique, called functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI, can image brain activity associated with pain.

Dr. Huey-Jen Lee and her colleagues studied 12 patients, producing light pain in their upper lips, then using acupuncture to alleviate the pain and measuring the patients’ responses with fMRI. They found that conventional acupuncture reduced the pain sensation, but that acupuncture in which a minute electrical current was administered through the needle produced a greater effect.