Microcirculatory changes by laser Doppler after infrared heating over acupuncture points--relevance to moxibustion.
BACKGROUND
Moxibustion is a commonly used treatment in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that involves the application of local heating (LH) at acupoints.


OBJECTIVE
We used laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) and spectrum analysis to investigate differences in the microcirculatory responses to the application of homogeneous LH at Hoku and two nearby nonacupoints.


METHODS
Thirty-four trials were performed on 10 male healthy volunteers. For each experiment, we recorded a 20-minute baseline data sequence, then applied LH by an infrared-radiation lamp and recorded another 20-minute heating-effect sequence. The relative energy contributions (RECs) for LDF periodic oscillations in five characteristic frequency regions from 0.0095 to 1.6 Hz (segmented into FR1-FR5) were calculated by wavelet analysis.


RESULTS
The flux increased significantly following LH. Decreases in RECs of FR2 and FR3, increases in RECs of FR1 and FR5, and the flux increase following LH were all largest at Hoku.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that the application of LH to acupoints induces larger therapeutic effects. This might partly account for the physiological mechanism of moxibustion, and could contribute to optimizing the microcirculatory improvement by applying LH treatments. Frequency-band analysis appears to be a promising tool for studying microcirculatory responses induced by various TCM treatments.
Hsiu
Hsin
H
Department of Electrical Engineering, Yuan Ze University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC. hhsiu@saturn.yzu.edu.tw
Hsu
Wei-Chen
WC
Hsu
Chia-Liang
CL
Huang
Shih-Ming
SM
Lin
Yuh-Ying Wang
YY
D015669:Acupuncture Points; D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D007259:Infrared Rays; D017078:Laser-Doppler Flowmetry; D008297:Male; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D008833:Microcirculation; D009071:Moxibustion; D013057:Spectrum Analysis; D013997:Time Factors