Over the past twenty years, with the development of brain science, many acupuncture clinical researchers have used multidisciplinary methods and techniques to perform acupuncture clinical research on cerebrosis. Up to now, many achievements have been obtained such as expanding studied disease entities, standardizing methods, identifying objects, and developing more and more treatment methods and in-depth mechanism research.

Acupuncture is a traditional empirical medicine, and evidence-based medicine(EBM) is a new medical method and development of the empirical medicine. Since 1990s, Chinese acupuncture workers began to absorb and use the methods and principles of EBM to guide acupuncture clinical research and practice. Now more and more domestic acupuncture clinicians use and follow the methods and principles of EBM. On the systemic review of acupuncture-associated articles in Cochrane library, previously effective acupuncture therapy lacks adequate evidences, which may be related to the low quality of randomized controlled trials(RCTs). In the future, only developing specialized team of acupuncture clinical research and clinical research center can radically elevate the levels of acupuncture clinical research and evaluation. Meanwhile, developing China's evidence-based acupuncture should base itself on the characteristics of acupuncture, such as emphasis on original research in ancient books,high-quality single RCTs and systemic review of non-randomized researches.

The theoretical foundation and scientific connotation of spirit-regulating and pain-relieving acupuncture method as well as its clinical application for pain are discussed. During spirit regulation, attention should be paid on regulating heart and brain, while acupoints should be selected mainly from the Heart Meridian, Pericardium Meridian and Governor Vessel. It has significant efficacy for refractory pain in clinical treatment. Spirit-regulating and pain-relieving acupuncture method is development of acupuncture treating spirit, and it is an important method for pain in clinic. Improvement on sensitization of pain center and brain function is considered as one of the mechanisms in spirit-regulating and pain-relieving acupuncture method.
Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; history ; methods ; psychology ; China ; History, Ancient ; Humans ; Medicine in Literature ; Meridians ; Pain Management ; history ; methods ; psychology

Objective To assess the influence of PBL formation study effectiveness of TCM students.Methods The controlled studies with the teaching format of both PBL and LBL were included to assess the effectiveness of learning,by searching CBM,CNKI and VIP database.All data was analyzed on Revman 5.1.Results 9 articles were included ; All were low in the quality of their methodology,and the theoretical scores of students in PBL or LBL format shows no statistical difference [SMD=3.76,95％ CI ( -0.62,8.15 ) ].PBL format was superior to LBL on students' practical scores [SMD=7.62,95％ CI ( 3.92,11.32 ) ]; Compared to LBL format,PBL proved to have a better influence on students' self-assessment for learning ability[OR=3.69,95％ CI( 1.88,7.21 )].Conclusion PBL helps to enhance the activeness of students,to improve their practical ability,which is valuable if applied in clinical concerned courses.But the included studies were low in quality; more rigorously randomized controlled teaching trials are expected to verify the conclusion.

Objective:To analyze the rules and characteristics of acupoints selection in acupuncture RCT literature on therapy of Bell palsy.Methods:Acupuncture Prescription Database was established through collecting RCT literature of acupuncture treatment of Bell palsy.The characteristics and rules of acupoints selection were investigated by means of data mining method.Results:After data mining-based analysis on acupuncture therapy of Bell palsy,we found that points on Yangming Meridians were frequently used,especially ST 4.Selection of local acupoints and distal points were important.Conclusion:According the means of data mining,the results revealed that acupoints selection along related meridian was the important principle for Bell palsy,and the special acupoints were the main part of prescriptions.

0.05).Conclusion The patients with CFS show a disorder of circadian rhythm.However,each index of CFS has no significant difference on the overall level.The imbalance of circadian rhythm is the pathologic characteristic of CFS.

Objective To explore the feasibility of application of data mining in the study on selection and specificity of acupoints.Methods The ancient and modern prescription data of acupuncture treating migraine and functional dyspepsia were regarded as sample data. Database techniques and natural language processing techniques were introduced to structurize and standardize acupuncture prescription data. Based on association rule data mining, the self-developed Acupuncture Data Mining System was applied to discover the rules of selection of acupoints.Results There were collected 634 and 386 prescriptions of acupuncture treating migraine and functional dyspepsia respectively. In the prescriptions treating migraine, acupoints distributed on Gallbladder meridian and Triple Energizer meridian accounted for 40.5% and 50.6% in ancient time and modern time respectively, and specific points accounted for 84.0% and 82.8% in ancient time and modern time respectively. In the prescriptions treating functional dyspepsia, acupoints distributed on Conception vessel, Bladder meridian and Stomach meridian accounted for 62.1% and 75.7% in ancient time and modern time respectively, and specific points accounted for 70.0% and 83.3% in ancient time and modern time respectively.Conclusion The result of data mining proves that the rule of selection of acupoints is "selecting acupoints along the affected meridian" and "mostly selecting specific points", and the specificity of acupoints is "where the meridian goes, where the qi accumulates".

By using data mining technology, the characteristics of acupoints selection of modern moxibustion for primary dysmenorrhea (PD) were analyzed. The modern literature regarding moxibustion for PDl was coll6cted~ from a comprehensive retrieval in Chinese Biomedical Medicine (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP and PubMed. The prescription database of moxihustion was established, and the association rule4 method of data mining technology was adopted to analyze characteristics and rules of acupoints selection of modern moxibustion for PD. As a result, a total of 35 acupoints were involved with a total frequency of 399. The acupoints, with higher selected frequency included Guanyuan (CV 4, 90 times), Sanyinjiao (SP 6, 47 times), Shenque (CV 8, 43 times), Zhongji (CV 3, 3 times) and Qihai (CV 6, 28 tirmes); the ratio of yin-meridian acupoints to1 yang-meridian acupoints was approximately 341; the utilization of the specific acupoints accountedfor68. 6% (24/35); the crossing acupoints were used mostly (203 "times), featured with high acupoints selected, especially Guanyuan (CV 4), Sanyinjiao CSP 6) and Zhongji (CV 3); the front-mu points (130 times), he-sa points (19 times) and lower he-sea points (18 times) were frequently used. The results reveal thiat acupoints selection of moxibustion of PD focuses on the local acupoints and comnbination with the distal acupoints. The yin-meridian acupoints are preferred and the specific acupoints are the main part of the prescription. This conclusion can also be used to optimize the choosing of acupoints in clinic.
Acupuncture Points ; Data Mining ; Databases, Bibliographic ; Dysmenorrhea ; therapy ; Female ; Humans ; Moxibustion ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic

Apoptosis refers to the programmed death process of cells modulated by genes. It plays an important role in promoting the evolution of organisms, regulating the development of multiple systems, and maintaining the stability of internal environment. The major apoptosis pathways include mitochondrial pathways, death receptor pathways, and endoplasmic reticulum pathways. With the rapid development of the scientific research on acupuncture, it’s revealed that cell apoptosis should be closely related to the action of acupuncture. So far, the major apoptosis factors involved in relevant researches are P53, Bcl-2 family, Cyt-C, Caspase, Fas/Fasl, TNFR1/TNF-?, and FADD-Caspase8, and PERK, etc. Via influencing these apoptosis factors or genes, acupuncture can produce various effects in improving tissue ischemia, protecting neural cells, reducing inflammation, and correcting endocrine disorders. This article summarized and reviewed the apoptosis pathways and key factors related to the action of acupuncture, to provide some beneficial references for future studies.

Ob jective To research the gene expression profile of aura-absence migraine patients before and after acupuncture of Shaoyang meridian acupoints or non-acupoints. Methods Twenty aura-absence migraine patients were randomly divided into meridian acupoint group and non-acupoint group, 10 cases in each group. Gene chip technology was used to investigate the differences of two sets of gene expression profiles, and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was applied for the analysis of partial genes to verify the accuracy of gene chip detection results. Results Seventy-two differentially expressed genes were obtained in meridian acupoint group, and 110 differentially expressed genes were obtained in non-acupoint group. The function genes of meridian acupoint group involved brain endorphin enzyme, adenosine triphosphate ( ATP) synthase, etc., which were closely related with the curing of aura-absence migraine. Non-acupoint group had extensive and scattered function genes involving apoptosis, DNA repair, etc., which had less correlation with the curing of aura-absence migraine. ATPAF2, PTGS2, TOR3A genes of meridian acupoint group and ACP2, AURKA, ARHGEF11, CASP8 gene of non-acupoint group presented by RT-PCR analysis had verified the reliability of microarray data. Conclusion The therapeutic effect of meridian acupoints acupuncture for aura-absence migraine has achieved through the multi-gene action at the molecular level, but the corresponding target genes for the placebo effect of non-acupoint acupuncture have not been found , which demonstrates the existence of meridian effect.