Using Nonlinear Dynamics and Multivariate Statistics to Analyze EEG Signals of Insomniacs with the Intervention of Superficial Acupuncture

Effects of Sleep Reactivity on Sleep Macro-Structure, Orderliness, and Cortisol After Stress: A Preliminary Study in Healthy Young Adults

Purpose

To investigate changes and links of stress and high sleep reactivity (H-SR) on the macro-structure and orderliness of sleep and cortisol levels in good sleepers (GS).

Patients and Methods

Sixty-two GS (18-40 years old) were recruited, with 32 in the stress group and 30 in the control group. Each group was further divided into H-SR and low SR subgroups based on the Ford Insomnia Response to Stress Test. All participants completed two nights of polysomnography in a sleep laboratory. Before conducting polysomnography on the second night, the stress group completed the Trier Social Stress Test and saliva was collected.

Results

The duration of NREM sleep stages 1, 2 (N1, N2) and rapid eye movement sleep (REM) decreased, and the values of approximate entropy, sample entropy, fuzzy entropy, and multiscale entropy increased under stress and SR effects. Stress increased rapid eye movement density, and H-SR increased cortisol reactivity.

Conclusion

Stress can damage the sleep and increase cortisol release in GS, especially those with H-SR. N1, N2 and REM sleep are more easily affected, while NREM sleep stage 3 sleep is relatively stable.

A true response of the brain network during electroacupuncture stimulation at scalp acupoints: An fMRI with simultaneous EAS study

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to explore simultaneous brain network responses to electroacupuncture stimulation (EAS) at scalp acupoints by accounting for placebo effects.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sixty healthy subjects were recruited and randomly divided into two groups: Group 1 and Group 2. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed in Group 1 with sham acupuncture stimulation at acupoints Shenting (GV24) and Touwei (ST8) without EAS. Group 2 underwent verum EAS at the same acupoints during fMRI. Independent component analysis was used to analyze the fMRI data. Full-factor statistical analysis was used to compare the differences in fMRI data between the two groups and evaluate the changes in functional connectivity in brain networks after verum electrical stimulation (Group 1 [after sham electrical current stimulation - before sham electrical current stimulation] - Group 2 [after verum electrical current stimulation - before verum electrical current stimulation]) (p <.001, extent threshold k = 20 voxels).

RESULTS

Six brain networks were identified. Significant increased functional connectivity was observed in the right and left executive control networks, sensorimotor network, and attention network, while decreased functional connectivity was mainly found in the default mode network. There were no statistically significant differences in the salience network.

CONCLUSIONS

fMRI with simultaneous EAS provides a method to explore brain network responses due to EAS at scalp acupoints. The networks responsible for cognition are differentially activated by EAS in a coordinated manner.

Clinical Experience of Acupuncture Treatment for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Based on the authors' clinical experience, the acupuncture treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease mainly includes the following three aspects. (1) The etiology and pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease are based on "deficiency in origin and excess in superficiality." The deficiency in origin means deficiency of the spleen and stomach, and the excess in superficiality is caused by hepatobiliary disorders. (2) The application of the theory of strengthening the spleen and mobilizing transportation should be considered for the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease by acupuncture and moxibustion. Therefore, the use of "treatment from the spleen" often has miraculous effects. (3) Skillful use of acupuncture, shallow acupuncture, acupoint thread embedding, and other traditional Chinese medicine therapies are used to regulate the liver and spleen. In addition, warm acupuncture is reused to warm the Yang and strengthen the body.

Low-Dimensional Dynamics of Brain Activity Associated with Manual Acupuncture in Healthy Subjects

Acupuncture is one of the oldest traditional medical treatments in Asian countries. However, the scientific explanation regarding the therapeutic effect of acupuncture is still unknown. The much-discussed hypothesis it that acupuncture’s effects are mediated via autonomic neural networks; nevertheless, dynamic brain activity involved in the acupuncture response has still not been elicited. In this work, we hypothesized that there exists a lower-dimensional subspace of dynamic brain activity across subjects, underpinning the brain’s response to manual acupuncture stimulation. To this end, we employed a variational auto-encoder to probe the latent variables from multichannel EEG signals associated with acupuncture stimulation at the ST36 acupoint. The experimental results demonstrate that manual acupuncture stimuli can reduce the dimensionality of brain activity, which results from the enhancement of oscillatory activity in the delta and alpha frequency bands induced by acupuncture. Moreover, it was found that large-scale brain activity could be constrained within a low-dimensional neural subspace, which is spanned by the “acupuncture mode”. In each neural subspace, the steady dynamics of the brain in response to acupuncture stimuli converge to topologically similar elliptic-shaped attractors across different subjects. The attractor morphology is closely related to the frequency of the acupuncture stimulation. These results shed light on probing the large-scale brain response to manual acupuncture stimuli.