Acupuncture for Alzheimer Disease

Acupuncture Improves 

Hippocampal Connectivity in AD Patients

A newly published study has found that acupuncture can enhance the hippocampal connectivity in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both AD patients and healthy elders were needled on Taichong (LR 3) and Hegu (LI 4). The researchers first acquired baseline resting state data during the initial 3 minutes and then performed acupuncture stimulation on the Taichong (LR 3) and Hegu (LI 4) acupoints for 3 minutes, and then  acquired fMRI data for another 10 minutes after the needle was withdrawn. The study found that during the resting state, several frontal and temporal regions showed decreased hippocampal connectivity in AD patients relative to control subjects. During the resting state following acupuncture, AD patients showed increased connectivity in most of these hippocampus related regions compared to the first resting state. The study confirmed that acupuncture can enhance the hippocampal connectivity in AD patients.

The research paper is available here.