Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients

In this study, we investigated cortical thickness and functional connectivity across longitudinal acupuncture treatments in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Over a period of four weeks (six treatments), we collected resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans from 30 pati...

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Main Authors:	Chen, Xiaoyan, Spaeth, Rosa B., Retzepi, Kallirroi, Ott, Daniel, Kong, Jian
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Nature Publishing Group 2014
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175730/

id	pubmed-4175730
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-41757302014-10-02 Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients Chen, Xiaoyan Spaeth, Rosa B. Retzepi, Kallirroi Ott, Daniel Kong, Jian Article In this study, we investigated cortical thickness and functional connectivity across longitudinal acupuncture treatments in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Over a period of four weeks (six treatments), we collected resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans from 30 patients before their first, third and sixth treatments. Clinical outcome showed a significantly greater Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) pain score (improvement) with verum acupuncture compared to the sham acupuncture. Longitudinal cortical thickness analysis showed that the cortical thickness at left posterior medial prefrontal cortex (pMPFC) decreased significantly in the sham group across treatment sessions as compared with verum group. Resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis using the left pMPFC as a seed showed that after longitudinal treatments, the rsFC between the left pMPFC and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), medial frontal pole (mFP) and periaquiduct grey (PAG) are significantly greater in the verum acupuncture group as compared with the sham group. Our results suggest that acupuncture may achieve its therapeutic effect on knee OA pain by preventing cortical thinning and decreases in functional connectivity in major pain related areas, therefore modulating pain in the descending pain modulatory pathway. Nature Publishing Group 2014-09-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4175730/ /pubmed/25258037 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep06482 Text en Copyright © 2014, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Chen, Xiaoyan Spaeth, Rosa B. Retzepi, Kallirroi Ott, Daniel Kong, Jian
spellingShingle	Chen, Xiaoyan Spaeth, Rosa B. Retzepi, Kallirroi Ott, Daniel Kong, Jian Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients
author_facet	Chen, Xiaoyan Spaeth, Rosa B. Retzepi, Kallirroi Ott, Daniel Kong, Jian
author_sort	Chen, Xiaoyan
title	Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients
title_short	Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients
title_full	Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients
title_fullStr	Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients
title_full_unstemmed	Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients
title_sort	acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients
description	In this study, we investigated cortical thickness and functional connectivity across longitudinal acupuncture treatments in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Over a period of four weeks (six treatments), we collected resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans from 30 patients before their first, third and sixth treatments. Clinical outcome showed a significantly greater Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) pain score (improvement) with verum acupuncture compared to the sham acupuncture. Longitudinal cortical thickness analysis showed that the cortical thickness at left posterior medial prefrontal cortex (pMPFC) decreased significantly in the sham group across treatment sessions as compared with verum group. Resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis using the left pMPFC as a seed showed that after longitudinal treatments, the rsFC between the left pMPFC and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), medial frontal pole (mFP) and periaquiduct grey (PAG) are significantly greater in the verum acupuncture group as compared with the sham group. Our results suggest that acupuncture may achieve its therapeutic effect on knee OA pain by preventing cortical thinning and decreases in functional connectivity in major pain related areas, therefore modulating pain in the descending pain modulatory pathway.
publisher	Nature Publishing Group
publishDate	2014
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175730/
_version_	1613137499884879872

Acupuncture modulates cortical thickness and functional connectivity in knee osteoarthritis patients

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