Potential neural mechanisms of acupuncture therapy on migraine: a systematic review and activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis update
Abstract
Background Migraine is a common, disabling, chronic headache disorder. Acupuncture is one of the effective complementary therapies for migraine. However, the neural mechanisms of acupuncture on migraine remain unclear. With the increased number of neuroimaging studies of acupuncture for migraine in recent years, there is an urgent need to update the data for pooled analyses. This study aimed to comprehensively summarize the relevant literature, identify brain regions with significant changes in brain activity after acupuncture, and explore the potential neural mechanisms of acupuncture on migraine. Methods A search was conducted by two independent researchers for neuroimaging studies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) on the effects of acupuncture on migraine up to October 2023 in the databases of PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data, Chinese Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (SinoMed). Observational studies and clinical trials in Chinese or English were included; abstracts and studies without peer review were excluded. Brain regions with increased or decreased activity in the true acupuncture (TA) and sham acupuncture (SA) groups were pooled. A meta-analysis was performed using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) algorithm. Fail-safe N (FSN) analysis was performed for publication bias and…
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Evidence Hub reads this as a meta-analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 1 of 5 (Highest · pooled evidence). Pooled evidence from several studies sits at the top of the evidence pyramid. Reported size: 514 participants or records.
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