Altered Functional Activity and Functional Connectivity of Seed Regions Based on ALFF Following Acupuncture Treatment in Patients with Stroke Sequelae with Unilateral Limb Numbness

Jing Peng; Jiaming Su; Lei Song; Qiuyi Lv; Ying Gao; Jingling Chang; Hua Zhang; Yihuai Zou; Xing Chen

doi:10.2147/NDT.S391616

Altered Functional Activity and Functional Connectivity of Seed Regions Based on ALFF Following Acupuncture Treatment in Patients with Stroke Sequelae with Unilateral Limb Numbness

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2023 Jan 25:19:233-245. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S391616. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jing Peng^#¹, Jiaming Su^#², Lei Song¹, Qiuyi Lv¹, Ying Gao¹, Jingling Chang¹, Hua Zhang¹, Yihuai Zou¹, Xing Chen³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Encephalopathy, Dongzhimen Hospital Affiliated to Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Nephrology, Dongzhimen Hospital Affiliated to Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of Brain Function Examination, Dongzhimen Hospital Affiliated to Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objective: Limb numbness is a frequent symptom of post-stroke somatosensory dysfunction, which may be alleviated by non-invasive therapy such as acupuncture. However, the precise mechanism via acupuncture remains unknown. The goal of this study was to investigate how the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) and functional connectivity (FC) changed between stroke patients with limb numbness and healthy people, as well as how acupuncture might work.

Methods: 24 stroke sequelae patients with unilateral limb numbness and 14 matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study. The patients with limb numbness received acupuncture therapy three days a week for four weeks. We mainly assessed the clinical outcomes via the visual analogue scale (VAS). In addition, fMRI data from patients with unilateral limb numbness at baseline and after treatment (4th week) were collected, as well as data from healthy controls at baseline.

Results: Compared with the healthy subjects, the patient group demonstrated significantly decreased ALFF in several brain regions, mainly associated with the sensorimotor network (SMN) and default mode network (DMN), including left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), right temporal fusiform cortex (TFC), right middle frontal gyrus (MFG), bilateral middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right putamen (PUT), right precentral gyrus (preCG), right planum polare (PP), and left supplementary motor area (SMA). These regions were chosen as the seeds for investigating the FC alteration induced by acupuncture. Several sensorimotor-related brain regions were activated by acupuncture, and the FC of the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) with right MTG, as well as brain-stem, cerebellum vermis 9 with right MFG showed enhancement following acupuncture in the patient group, which had a significant correlation with clinical outcomes.

Conclusion: Acupuncture treatment may be used to stimulate brain areas associated with somatosensory processing and to strengthen the FC of sensorimotor and cognitive brain networks in order to achieve therapeutic effect.

Keywords: acupuncture; amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation; functional connectivity; functional magnetic resonance imaging; somatosensory dysfunction; stroke.