You will prepare and submit a term paper on The effect of acupuncture at the cellular level. Your paper should be a minimum of 750 words in length. The focus in this paper is on the topic of acupuncture and its effects that has been much studied but so far there has been little consensus on how it achieves its evident analgesic effect. Some previous work has approached the question from the angle of brain activity and through the use of fMRI scanning techniques has established that stimulation of certain acupuncture points produces specific changes in cortical fMRI. It is widely accepted, therefore, that acupuncture is real, and has an actual analgesic effect and not just a placebo effect. These are not new findings. There is debate, however, about whether the point-specific claims of acupuncture can be demonstrated, since studies involving acupuncture at points not specified in the acupuncture scheme can also stimulate such analgesic effects. This study confirms that the analgesic effect exists, but also begins to explore how important the location of the needles is. This is done by means of experiments with needle insertion on mice at points close the locus of pain, and at points distant from the locus of pain, and comparing the results. The finding that acupuncture close to the point of pain has a better analgesic result tends to support the theory that locus of needle is important. It is still not a full endorsement of the peripheral pain relieving potential of acupuncture, however, because in the experiments carried out by Goldman et al. this was explored only at the level of left and right side.
