Nerophysiological Mechanisms of Acupuncture Analgesia

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Kazuo Toda. Department of Physiology, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8549, Japan. Nerophysiological Mechanisms of Acupuncture Analgesia. Proceedings of International Symposium on East-West Medicine, Seoul. 27-35,1999.-Acupuncture stimulation evokes powerful analgesic feeects in various species of animals and in man. It is important to know which peripheral nerves convey the acupuncture information for producing analgesic effects. In addition, as one of the specific action of the acupuncture, it has been reported that maximunm effects are produced some time after the onset of the stimulation and the effects still remains after the cessation of its stimulation. Above-mentioned specific action, which is usually sustained for some minutes or even some days, may not be explained by simple inhibitory neural mechanisms. Therefore, it has been proposed that the acupuncture effects are elicited by the activation of the endogenous oioid system. However, a clear mechanism of analgesic effects induced by acupuncture is still nuknown. The present speech shows the summary of the recent studies about peripheral and central mechanisms of acupuncture-induced antinociceptive effects obtained mainly from rat experimets. The main topics are as follows: 1. Characteristics of meridian points 2. Afferentnerve information evoked by acupuncture stimulation 3. Inhibitory mechanisms in the CNS 4. Endogenous antinocicptive substances concerned with acupuncture analgesia 5. Descending antinociceptive effects

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Introduction
• Rat meridians
• Characteristics of meridian points
• Afferent nerve information evoked by acupuncture stimulation.
• Inhibitory mechanisms in the CNS