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Phantom Acupuncture

There is now a new line of evidence that is very interesting, and one that I had not previously considered – phantom acupuncture. A recent study looked at performing acupuncture on a phantom limb. They used a now well-established technique of tricking the brain into incorporating a dummy body part as if it were real. They placed subjects in front of a table so that one of their arms was below the table, with a rubber arm above the table placed in such a way that visually the rubber arm looked like their own arm. They then stroke the rubber arm and the subjects real arm simultaneously. The brain sees and feels the rubber arm being stroked, and this sensory feedback is often enough for the brain to create the sensation of ownership over the rubber arm.

The researchers performed functional MRI scanning (fMRI) on subjects while needles were placed in their phantom rubber limbs. Keep in mind that fMRI research involves collecting lots of data and aggregating it. So the researchers are not looking at brain reactions in real time, just the aggregate brain activity of many subjects over many trials. They then look for statistical associations in the activity.

What they found was the same brain activation that previous studies have found with acupuncture of real limbs.