title: Acupuncture for visceral pain: neural substrates and potential mechanisms.
abstract: Visceral pain is the most common form of pain caused by varied diseases and a major reason for patients to seek medical consultation. Despite much advances, the pathophysiological mechanism is still poorly understood comparing with its somatic counterpart and, as a result, the therapeutic efficacy is usually unsatisfactory. Acupuncture has long been used for the management of numerous disorders in particular pain and visceral pain, characterized by the high therapeutic benefits and low adverse effects. Previous findings suggest that acupuncture depresses pain via activation of a number of neurotransmitters or modulators including opioid peptides, serotonin, norepinephrine, and adenosine centrally and peripherally. It endows us, by advancing the understanding of the role of ion channels and gut microbiota in pain process, with novel perspectives to probe the mechanisms underlying acupuncture analgesia. In this review, after describing the visceral innervation and the relevant afferent pathways, in particular the ion channels in visceral nociception, we propose three principal mechanisms responsible for acupuncture induced benefits on visceral pain. Finally, potential topics are highlighted regarding the future studies in this field.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
authors.forename: Shuping
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Acupuncture, China General Meitan Hospital, Beijing 100028, China.
authors.forename: Shubin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
authors.forename: Peijing
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rong
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
authors.forename: Junying
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
authors.forename: Lina
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
authors.forename: Xiumei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
authors.forename: Junling
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China.
authors.forename: Jianliang
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1037-2815
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang