Hypothetical experiments were done to examine various problems in the acupuncture research. Statistically significant suppressive effects of electroacupuncture (vs. control group) were demonstrated. A simple paper was made based on the hypothetical experimentation, and the insufficient descriptions, lack of experimental designs, errors in statistical methods were pointed out, then several comments were added. Several problems included in the multi-sample experimental designs and their statistical analysis in the acupuncture research were also discussed.

Effects of moxibustion on the jaw-opening reflex (JOR) were examined in lightly anesthetized rats. The evoked EMGs of digastric muscle elicited by tooth pulp stimulation were clearly suppressed for 2-3min by the moxibustion applied to the hair-removed skin. The suppressive effects of moxibustion on the JOR indicated some regional differences. The most effective region was the contralateral fore-arm, and a slightly less effective regions were the ipsilateral face, ipsilateral fore-arm and contralateral hind-leg. The difference of the effectiveness on JOR suppression between the acupuncture point and non-acupuncture point was not apparent.
These results suggest that the polymodal receptor, which is undoubtly activated by moxibustion, participates in the peripheral process of the induction of analgesic effect.

In the acupuncture clinic the method of selecting treatment points by measuring the electrical resistance of the skin has been widely used. It has become known that depending on the measuring period and the loaded voltage, the low resistance points of the skin are easily created, thus there remain many problems of the methods for measuring the skin resistance.
The present study was performed on the forearm skin of human subjects. For the measuring electrode an Ag-AgCl wire electrode with a diameter of 0.5mm was used. The electrode was fixed up to a FD-pick up (Nihon Kohden) and monitoring the pressure applied to the skin. A metal rod wrapped in a piece of gauze soaked with saline solution was used as the indifferent electrode. The skin resistance was calculated by measuring the current pass the both electrodes with a fixed resistance (10KΩ) Placed in series in the circuit when a square pulse (10msec, 4V) was appqied to the skin.
By used of the spuare pulse the low resistance points of the skin are stably detected when they are measured repeatedly. On the other hand, by of -DC 10 Volt, tce low resistance points gradually increase in number and lowering the resistance value by repeated measurerents. The sweat glands and hair follicle also show the low resistance value.
In conclusion, we could not distinguish the “true” low resistance points from sweat gland and other resistance destroyed points by measuring current clearly. But the square pulse method for measuring the skin resistance is useful to detect the low resistance point.

Suppressive effects of thermal stimulation of the tail on the jaw opening reflex were examined by the reversal design of single subject designs (SSD) in an urethane anesthetized rat. The results were evaluated by visual inspections of the graphs of moving averaged data and by C statistic as a simple time series analysis. The digastric evoked EMGs elicited by electrical stimulation of the gingiva (1.5x threshold intensity, 0.2Hz) had stable latency and biphasic wave form. Clear suppression of the JOR during thermal stimulation of 54°C for 30s was found by the visual inspection. The calculated C statistics based of 12 data of that of before and during thermal stimulation showed significant trends (p<0.05).
On the other hand, no significant trends were observed in baseline period and the data of 32°C thermal stimulation, and they were in agreement with the results of visual inspections.
These results indicate the noxious thermal stimulation activate the endogenous pain inhibitory mechanisms then induces analgesic effects, and the similar mechanisms were suggested to be participated in acupuncture or moxibustion stimulation-induced analgesia. Moreover the fact that evaluations by the C statistics agreed with the visual inspection suggests the validity of C statistic for evaluating the time series data in the SSD.

Acupuncture has been recognized as an useful treatment for muscle pain, muscle fatigue and muscle hypertonus in sports medicine. This study developed an experimental model to investigate the effect of acupuncture on muscular disorders.
Twenty-seven rabbits, anesthetized with pentobarbital (i. v.) were used. The anterior tibial muscle was exposed, and the distal end of the tendon was cut then attached to the push-pull gauge and tension during the isometric contraction induced by electrical stimulation of the muscle was recorded.
The tension was measured immediately before and 15, 30, 45 and 60min after the electrical stimulation. The frequencies of 1, 10, 20, 30, and 50Hz were used as the conditioning stimulation (1ms in duration, 60s).
Tension was decreased after the conditioning electrical stimulation of muscle. High frequency of stimuli tended to induce a marked decrease in tension.
Acupuncture stimulation (leaving the needle in place for 10min) reduced the decrement of the evoked tension by 30Hz tetanic stimulus significantly (p<0.05), and enhanced the recovery. Occlusion of the blood vessel supplying the muscle potentiated the decrement of evoked tension, and acupuncture stimulation still reduced the initial decrement of the evoked tension, suggesting that acupuncture acted on the blood flow in the muscle. After transection of the nerve innervating the muscle, acupuncture stimulation still demonstreted the same effect.
These results suggest that the acupuncture stimulation induces vasodilatation by axon reflex and the subsequent increase in blood flow to the muscle induces the recovery of reduced tension by tetanic contraction.