Localization of brain networks activated by acupuncture at anatomically adjacent acupoints in healthy participants: neuroimaging evidence and implications for migraine and stroke

作者：Zhiyang Zhang, Xu Ouyang, Chaorong Xie, Lichuan Zeng, Qi Fu, Qinyi Yan, Tong Wang, Xiao Wang, Ling Zhao · 发表于：Frontiers in Neuroscience · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.3389/fnins.2025.1740153 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Acupuncture Treatment Research Studies、Migraine and Headache Studies、Functional Brain Connectivity Studies

Background Neuroimaging investigations reveal heterogeneous acupuncture-induced brain activation patterns. Integrating acupoint-specific activation patterns into a unified connectomic framework enables systematic elucidation of acupoint-specific therapeutic mechanisms through network-level neural decoding. Methods This study integrated functional connectivity network mapping (FCNM) methodology, canonical brain networks, and neurotransmitter distributions to delineate the distinct cerebral activation profiles of ST36 (Zusanli) and GB34 (Yanglingquan), two acupoints with anatomical proximity but divergent therapeutic indications in healthy controls (HCs). Results The neural networks activated by acupuncture at ST36 and GB34 are both composed of widely distributed brain regions. These two acupoints co-activated the somatomotor network, the ventral attention network, and the dorsal attention network. The activation pattern of ST36 additionally emphasizes the visual network, while the activation pattern of GB34 primarily involves subcortical regions. The spatial patterns of activation brain networks of ST36 showed exploratory spatial correlations with the distributions of 6-fluoro-(18F)-L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (FDOPA), noradrenaline transporter (NET) and vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) neurotransmitter, while the GB34 were correlated with dopamine D1, dopamine D2, dopamine transporter, FDOPA, NET, N -methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor (NMDA), serotonin transporter (S...