Functional Brain Alterations Associated with Acupuncture for Chronic Pain

A scoping review synthesizes findings from 64 fMRI studies on acupuncture's central effects for chronic pain. The document, authored by Yuxin Wu and last updated in May 2026, includes data on study characteristics, acupuncture protocols, and neuroimaging findings. It covers conditions such as migraine, knee osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic low back pain.

Use Cases

• Analyze functional brain network alterations in chronic pain based on the description of default mode and sensorimotor network involvement.
• Compare neural correlates of different acupuncture modalities (VA, SA, EEA) based on the review's comparative evidence.
• Investigate functional connectivity patterns centered on the anterior cingulate cortex as suggested by the review's findings.
• Assess reporting quality of acupuncture interventions using the STRICTA framework referenced in the methodology.

Strengths

• Synthesizes evidence from 64 distinct fMRI studies, providing a broad overview of the field.
• Assesses reporting and methodological quality using standardized tools (STRICTA, RoB 2, Newcastle-Ottawa Scale).
• Covers multiple chronic pain conditions including migraine, osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia.

Limitations

• The dataset is a single PDF document (338.6 KB), not a structured data table, limiting direct computational analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for quantitative tasks.

Provenance

Source

Yuxin Wu via figshare

Collection Method

Scoping review synthesizing data extracted from eight databases searched from inception to March 2025.

Time Range

Studies from database inception to March 27, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-21 05:33:54; freshness should be verified.