基于功能核磁共振成像构建针刺腧穴脑图谱

Brain mapping is currently one of the popular topics on Neuroscience. The functional specialization of human brain areas can be easily identified with functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). Acupuncture acupoints specifically activate specific brain regions, which plays an important role in the mechanism of acupuncture function. In the present project, we hypothesize that functinally different acupoints can activate functionally heterogeneous brain regions and the activated brain regions can be observed with fMRI. Based on our previous works on cytoarchitectonic mapping, we first propose to construct the acupuncture brain map (ABmap) using fMRI, which is designed to needle the selected acupoints of healthy subjects and synchronously record the activated brain regions with fMRI. The maximum probability maps of the activated brain regions of each acupoint will be calculated and reconstructed in three-dimensional standard brain, thus the ABmap will be produced. After the ABmap is built, we further employ ABmap to serve as a research tool. Combining with other brain atlas and fMRI studies, the corresponding activated brain regions of acupoint or acupoint group will be extracted from ABmap and used as seed regions, then the seed will be imported the BrainMap database to explore the neurological function of acupoints and related acupuncture theoretical issues. Moreover, to develop a method of objective acupoints selection is also one issue should to solve in present project.

脑图谱研究是目前神经学领域研究热点之一。借助fMRI技术可以实现对大脑功能区的定位。针刺腧穴特异性的激活特定脑区，是针刺腧穴的神经学功能发挥机制中的重要一环。我们假设具有不同神经学功能的人体腧穴可以激活不同功能的脑区，这种激活的脑功能区可以通过fMRI检查进行定位发现。在我们前期大脑皮层细胞结构脑图谱研究基础上，首次提出利用fMRI构建针刺腧穴脑图谱（acupuncture brain map, ABmap），即针刺健康人群指定腧穴，通过fMRI记录其激活脑区，分析该腧穴对应的最大概率激活脑区，然后将其最大概率激活脑区重建在三维标准大脑中，从而构建得到三维ABmap。构建ABmap后，进一步将ABmap作为工具，结合其它脑图谱和fMRI研究，将针刺腧穴或腧穴组对应的脑激活区作为种子区域导入数据库，探索针刺腧穴的神经学功能和中医针刺理论问题；并建立依据ABmap进行针刺客观化取穴方法。

本项目在充分前期脑图谱探索的基础上，借助fMRI数据分析技术对针刺腧穴后脑区活动进行定位，首次提出针刺腧穴脑图谱（acupuncture brain map, ABmap）这一概念，并建立了系统的构建ABmap的方法。构建ABmap后，进一步将ABmap作为工具，结合其它脑图谱和影像学研究，将针刺腧穴对应的脑激活区作为种子区域导入数据库，探索针刺腧穴的神经学功能。本项目结果为针刺研究与现代脑图谱及影像学研究等的桥接和联系提供了理论和实验基础，对揭示针刺的机制具有重要的科学价值。