Acupuncture with neuroscience is even better

Acupuncture in the West is still considered an “alternative” treatment. The “meridians” through which energy flow can supposedly be manipulated by placing needles at specific points on the body have not yet been supported by anatomical studies. But it seems that the problem was in expecting these meridians to be channels or tubes. According to a recent study, conducted jointly by researchers in the US and China, acupuncture acts directly on the nerves themselves.

And what's even better: it works even on anesthetized mice. In other words, not only is acupuncture not a human prerogative, it certainly does not depend on the placebo effect (unlike homeopathy). In addition, the proven effectiveness of acupuncture in rodents allows researchers to use a whole arsenal of genetic and pharmacological modifications to directly test the circuits and mechanisms of acupuncture.

The authors of the study published in the journal Neuron used electroacupuncture, which has the added benefit of being intensity-controlled, to treat mice injected with a dose of lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which involve bacteria, high enough to cause an inflammatory storm so intense that it kills 80% of the animals within three days. Like the extreme response to COVID-19, in fact: the enemy is fought, but at the cost of destroying the body itself.

Well, a single 15-minute session of electroacupuncture at the ST36 point on the thigh, 90 minutes after the LPS injection, proved sufficient to contain the inflammatory response to the point of allowing more than half of the animals to survive. Electrical stimulation of the ST36 point activates, via sensory nerves, a parasympathetic reflex, which through the vagus nerve stimulates the adrenal gland to release anti-inflammatory substances into the blood.

At another point, ST25, in the abdomen, the effects occur through a sympathetic, medullary reflex arc—and depend on the context. With electroacupuncture just before the LPS injection, more than half of the animals survived the generalized inflammation that followed—but the same application during systemic inflammation only worsened the situation. Under these conditions, no animal survived 72 hours.

The study reveals that acupuncture may indeed have contraindications – but now that its basis in the stimulation of physiological reflexes has been discovered, it is possible to understand the sources of the complexity of this ancient treatment and even use electrodes instead of needles to activate nerves in a controlled manner. Or else, resort to the low-tech version: pinching in the right place also works.

Extracted from Suzana Herculano-Houzel (2025) Neuroscience of Everyday Life, originally published in Folha de São Paulo in February 2021.