Cheek Acupuncture Surprisingly Affects Brain Oscillations Chronic Pain
I’ve not used cheek acupuncture in the clinic, but this is certainly an interesting finding. When I DO use it, it’s in conjunction with cosmetic acupuncture, strangely enough. Acupuncture for chronic pain here.
Cheek acupuncture may relieve chronic pain while changing patterns of brain activity. Researchers recorded electrical brain signals in 37 people before, during, and after treatment, and compared their responses with those of 13 people receiving sham acupuncture. Cheek acupuncture produced significantly greater immediate pain relief.
During needle insertion, slower theta brain waves decreased and faster gamma waves increased. After needle removal, synchronization of beta waves between frontal brain regions decreased. The researchers interpret these changes as possible improvements in how the brain processes pain signals and regulates its response to them.
People with larger reductions in theta activity generally experienced greater pain relief, although this change explained only a small portion of the treatment’s effect.
These findings suggest a neurological basis for the immediate benefits of cheek acupuncture. However, this small study does not establish lasting effectiveness, prove the proposed mechanisms, or completely exclude contributions from expectations and placebo effects. PubMed
Developed by Yongzhou Wang, it is a microsystem acupuncture technique using 16 standardized points on each cheek, located using facial anatomical landmarks. Its proposed “holographic” map assigns cheek points to distant body regions, allowing cheek needling to treat pain elsewhere. That map is the technique’s theoretical framework; the EEG study does not establish that the proposed mapping is anatomically valid. frontiersin.org
Abstract
Chronic pain challenges global healthcare due to its complexity and the limitations of current treatments. Cheek acupuncture (CA), which targets specific acupoints on the cheek based on the biological holographic model, has shown promise for immediate pain relief. Despite its efficacy across various clinical studies, the mechanisms underlying its analgesic effects remain unclear. In this study, through resting electroencephalography analysis of 37 participants with chronic pain before, during, and after CA therapy, we investigated the electrophysiological modulations underlying the immediate analgesic effects of CA, with further comparison to an additional 13 participants with chronic pain undergoing sham acupuncture to exclude the potential placebo effects. Compared with sham acupuncture, CA demonstrated a significant immediate analgesic effect for chronic pain. Meanwhile, CA also triggered significant modulations on brain oscillations and their synchrony, which are distinct at different acupuncture procedures. Specifically, needle insertion of CA significantly reduced theta oscillations and enhanced gamma oscillations, suggesting a downregulation of hyperactive thalamic activity and an improvement of feedforward communication in pain processing; while after needle withdrawal, beta-band synchrony within the frontal lobe was decreased, indicating an improvement in the efficiency of feedback regulatory information transmission by reducing excessive connections. These modulations together improve the integration of nociceptive and contextual information in pain processing. Notably, the reduced theta oscillations were significantly correlated with the magnitude of pain relief and exerted a weak mediating effect in analgesia. Our findings provide electrophysiological insights into the immediate analgesic mechanism of CA.