全世界有数百万人利用针灸去缓解疼痛，但人们仍然不清楚这种古代医疗方法的原理。现在，一项对老鼠的新研究显示，针灸的针刺可能会激活周围的疼痛抑制受体，并释放出一种能促进受体响应疼痛的化合物。报告发表在最新一期的《自然神经科学》上。研究人员提出了两种针灸止痛假说。一种观点是，针灸通过刺激疼痛感应神经，引发大脑释放出名为“内啡肽”的类似鸦片的化合物。另一种观点认为，针灸的作用类似于安慰剂。纽约Rochester大学医学中心神经学家Maiken Nedergaard对两种假说都持怀疑态度。Nedergaard怀疑，当针灸师刺进并旋转针灸针，它可能会造成器官组织的轻微损伤，导致其释放出名为腺苷的缓解局部疼痛的化合物。Nedergaard与其16岁女儿Nanna Goldman、及其他研究人员对一只老鼠的腿实施轻微针刺，然后提取针灸点周围的液体，发现腺苷的含量是针灸前的24倍。然后，研究人员进一步发现，增加腺苷能延长止痛时间。而基因改造过无腺苷功能的老鼠没有从这种治疗中获得任何好处。也有专家对这项发现表达了异议，他认为上述发现恰好可作为安慰剂效应的证据，因为皮肤的任何地方受到伤害都会产生抗疼痛的腺苷。这位作者还挖掘出论文合作者之一的妻子是互补和替代医疗（针灸属于替代医疗）中心的主任。
From Science
Millions of people worldwide use acupuncture to ease a variety of painful conditions, but it’s still not clear how the ancient treatment works. Now a new study of mice shows that insertion of an acupuncture needle activates nearby pain-suppressing receptors. What’s more, a compound that boosts the response of those receptors increases pain relief—a finding that could one day lead to drugs that enhance the effectiveness of acupuncture in people.
Researchers have developed two hypotheses for how acupuncture relieves pain. One holds that the needle stimulates pain-sensing nerves, which trigger the brain to release opiumlike compounds called endorphins that circulate in the body. The other holds that acupuncture works through a placebo effect, in which the patient's thinking releases endorphins. Neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York state was skeptical about both hypotheses because acupuncture doesn’t hurt and often works only when needles are inserted near the sore site. Nedergaard instead suspected that when acupuncturists insert and rotate needles, they cause minor damage to the tissue, which releases a compound called adenosine that acts as a local pain reliever.
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