Neuromechanism of acupuncture regulating gastrointestinal motility

Acupuncture has been used in China for thousands of years and has become more widely accepted by doctors and patients around the world. A large number of clinical studies and animal experiments have confirmed that acupuncture has a benign adjustment effect on gastrointestinal(GI) movement;however, the mechanism of this effect is unclear, especially in terms of neural mechanisms, and there are still many areas that require further exploration. This article reviews the recent data on the neural mechanism of acupuncture on GI movements. We summarize the neural mechanism of acupuncture on GI movement from four aspects: acupuncture signal transmission, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, the enteric nervous system, and the central nervous system.

Cerebral mechanism of puncturing at He-Mu point combination for functional dyspepsia: study protocol for a randomized controlled parallel trial

Acupuncture is widely used to treat functional dyspepsia with satisfactory outcomes. Combination of the He and Mu acupoints is commonly used and has a synergistic effect on functional dyspepsia; however, its underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Therefore, a randomized controlled parallel clinical trial is currently underway at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China. This trial is designed to explore the efficacy of and central responses to the He-Mu point combination in patients with functional dyspepsia using functional magnetic resonance imaging. A total of 105 patients with functional dyspepsia will be allocated into 3 groups: the low-He point group(puncturing at Zusanli(ST36)), Mu point group(puncturing at Zhongwan(CV12)), and He-Mu point combination group(puncturing at ST36 and CV12). Every participant will receive 20 sessions of manual acupuncture for 4 weeks. The needles will be inserted perpendicularly to a depth of 1 to 2 cun. The angle of rotation and twisting will range from 90 to 180 degrees, while lifting and thrusting will range from 0.3 to 0.5 cm. The various manipulations will be performed 60 to 90 times per minute. The needles will remain in place for 30 minutes, during which manipulation will be applied every 10 minutes. Magnetic resonance imaging will be performed before and after 20 sessions of acupuncture. The primary outcome is symptom improvement according to the Chinese version of the Nepean Dyspepsia Index. Secondary outcomes include the Leeds dyspepsia questionnaire, Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, Self-Rating Depression Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and visual analogue scale scores before and after 10 and 20 sessions of acupuncture. Needle sensation and adverse events will be used to assess the therapeutic effects. This study will promote more widespread awareness of the benefits of acupoint combination in the clinical setting and provide a further explanation of the neuromechanism by which acupuncture at the He-Mu point combination for functional dyspepsia. Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, Chi CTR-IOR-15006402.

Slacklining:A narrative review on the origins,neuromechanical models and therapeutic use

Slacklining,the neuromechanical action of balance retention on a tightened band,is achieved through self-learned strategies combining dynamic stability with optimal energy expenditure.Published slacklining literature is recent and limited,including for neuromechanical control strategy models.This paper explores slacklining’s definitions and origins to provide background that facilitates understanding its evolution and progressive incorporation into both prehabilitation and rehabilitation.Existing explanatory slacklining models are considered,their application to balance and stability,and knowledge-gaps highlighted.Current slacklining models predominantly derive from human quiet-standing and frontal plane movement on stable surfaces.These provide a multi-tiered context of the unique and complex neuro-motoric requirements for slacklining’s multiple applications,but are not sufficiently comprehensive.This consequently leaves an incomplete understanding of how slacklining is achieved,in relation to multi-directional instability and complex multi-dimensional human movement and behavior.This paper highlights the knowledge-gaps and sets a foundation for the required explanatory control mechanisms that evolve and expand a more detailed model of multi-dimensional slacklining and human functional movement.Such a model facilitates a more complete understanding of existing performance and rehabilitation applications that opens the potential for future applications into broader areas of movement in diverse fields including prostheses,automation and machine-learning related to movement phenotypes.

Language Neuromechanics: The Human Biological-Language Evolution

The paper proposes that the understanding of human language evolution requires the comprehensive understanding of language in terms of language types, formations, and learnings and the comprehensive understanding of human biological evolution in terms of the emergences of various hominin species with various language capacities. This paper proposes language neuromechanics and the human biological-language evolution. Language is derived from bodily movement. Language neuro-mechanics combines neuroscience to study language brain and biomechanics to study language movement. Language neuromechanics consists of language type, language formation, and language learning. Language types for advanced animals include gestural language verse vocal language, instinctive language verse controllable language, and symbolic language verse iconic language. Language formation involves the developments of the different types of languages from different bodily movements phylogenetically and ontogenetically. Language learning involves the learning of controllable language to adapt to communicative environment through language brain regions and language genes. This paper proposes a gradual and step-by-step human language evolution from the language of great apes to the human language through the human biological evolution which chronologically and geographically consists of early hominins, early Homos, middle Homos, and late Homos with different language capacities. For hominins, vocal language and gestural language were evolved together. In conclusion, combining neuroscience and bio-mechanics, language neuromechanics provides the comprehensive understanding of language. The combination of language neuromechanics and the human biological-language evolution provides the clear evolutionary path from great apes’ articulate gestural language without articulate speech to human articulate gestural language and articulate speech.