Effect of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Acupuncture Point on Brain Network

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), as a new therapy, has been proven to be efficient in inducing electric fields in the neuronal tissues and modulating brain activity in the applications to stimulate different positions of human body such as the brain, peripheral nerves, and acupuncture points (acupoint) in the last decade. Acupuncture, an ancient therapeutic technique, is gaining popularity in Western medicine, but the underlying regulation mechanism of acupuncture has not been well understood and still needs to be further investigated. By using electroencephalogram, signals before and following stimulation of Shenmen acupoint (HT7) were acquired noninvasively. Then, we adopted a network model analysis from graph theory to construct a network and evaluate network measures of brain connectivity among multiple brain regions before and following stimulation. An analysis of the resulting brain functional network found that the parietal lobe and parietal-occipital lobe shared lower degree and strength following stimulation than before and the frontal lobe shared higher betweenness centrality than before. The network measures with significant differences were distributed over the brain areas contralateral to the stimulated hand, which has probable association with the regulation mechanism of TMS of HT7 acupoint.