Different Cerebellar Responding to Acupuncture at SP6 under Different Sleep States: an fMRI Study

Different Cerebellar Responding to Acupuncture at SP6 under Different Sleep States: an fMRI Study

Objective: To observe the activated differences of cerebellar stimulation before and after the sleep deprivation(SD) by acupuncturing SanYinJiao (SP6) in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for the first time. Methods: A group of 16 volunteers each accepted acupuncture at SP6 during normal sleep (SP6 group;SG) or after 24h SD (SD-SP6 group; SSG),the interval was two weeks, meanwhile, accomplishing the brain fMRI scanning by 3.0T (Siemens;German) MR, SPM5 software was used to perform one-sample T-test and two-pair T-test,voxels with a P value<0.001, cluster size (K) ≥ 10 in one-sample T-test and P<0.005, K ≥ 10 in two-pair T-test were used to determine statistical significance. Results: SSG widely activated the cerebellum mainly located in the bilateral inferior semi-lunar lobulecerebellum posterior lobe right cerebellum anterior lobe in the condition of Sleep deprivation (P<0.001, K ≥ 10); SG only activated left cerebellum posterior lobe (P<0.001, K ≥ 10); SSG only activated right cerebellum posterior lobe (P<0.01, K ≥ 10) versus SG; The two ground all weren’t caused negative activation in the cerebellum. Conclusions: The cerebellum were all activated but the responsive regions existed difference when stimulating SP6 under both sleep states; Cerebellum posterior lobe, the common regions actived in both groups, might be a common nerve pathway of SP6 under different states and participated in processing the acupuncture information.