Info needed on this Acupuncture study

[Kuko 4000]

Acupuncture improves cognitive deficits and regulates the brain cell proliferation of SAMP8 mice.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18215464

Abstract
Senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8) is an autogenic senile strain characterized by early cognitive impairment and age-related deterioration of learning and memory. To investigate the effect of acupuncture on behavioral changes and brain cell events, male 4-month-old SAMP8 and age-matched homologous normal aging SAMR1 mice were divided into four groups: SAMP8 acupuncture group (Pa), SAMP8 non-acupoint control group (Pn), SAMP8 control group (Pc) and SAMR1 normal control group (Rc). By Morris water maze test, the cognitive deficit of SAMP8 was revealed and significantly improved by "Yiqitiaoxue and Fubenpeiyuan" acupuncture. Meanwhile, by 5'-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine (BrdU) specific immunodetection, the decreased cell proliferation in dentate gyrus (DG) of SAMP8 was greatly enhanced by the therapeutic acupuncture, suggesting acupoint-related specificity. Even though no significant differences were found in ventricular/subventricular zones (VZ/SVZ) of the third ventricle (V3) and lateral ventricle (LV) between groups, we obtained interesting results: a stream-like distribution of newly proliferated cells presented along the dorsum of alveus hippocampi (Alv), extending from LV to corpus callosum (CC), and the therapeutic acupuncture showed a marked effect on this region. Our research suggests that acupuncture can induce different cell proliferation in different brain regions of SAMP8, which brings forth the need to explore further for the mechanism of cognitive deficits and acupuncture intervention in this field.

A Facebook friend quoted this study recently, he's a practising physician (MD), but he's also heavily invested in all sorts of woo. I thought it would be useful to bring this study over here for a better look and commentary. The commentary might become useful some day if this study comes up in a conversation.

I can't access the full study but from the abstract it seems that control groups are in place, but there is no mention of blinding of the authors. Other than that, there's not much that I can make sense of.

 

[Dancing David]

It is always going to come down to the actual effect size, they say it is significant but without the full study it is hard to say.
'greatly enhanced 'significantly improved '

Many studies report noise level effects as significant.

 

[fls]

Acupuncture improves cognitive deficits and regulates the brain cell proliferation of SAMP8 mice.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18215464

A Facebook friend quoted this study recently, he's a practising physician (MD), but he's also heavily invested in all sorts of woo. I thought it would be useful to bring this study over here for a better look and commentary. The commentary might become useful some day if this study comes up in a conversation.

I can't access the full study but from the abstract it seems that control groups are in place, but there is no mention of blinding of the authors. Other than that, there's not much that I can make sense of.

I will see if I can access this, but why was this study referenced? What sort of conclusions does he think can be supported by this study? With regards to 'level of evidence', this study would fall pretty low on the hierarchy, even before one addresses the problems which are already apparent from the abstract and figures.

Linda

 

[Kuko 4000]

I will see if I can access this, but why was this study referenced? What sort of conclusions does he think can be supported by this study? With regards to 'level of evidence', this study would fall pretty low on the hierarchy, even before one addresses the problems which are already apparent from the abstract and figures.

Linda

This was the original post in FB:

http://tinyurl.com/2vp3992

Now this is a rather interesting finding. I just tested what it would feel like to have parallel acupuncture needles in ears at certain points which are meant to affect Corpus Callosum and integrating the brain lobes.

What I feel subjectively is like being meditated the whole day. No internal noise or repeating thought processes, very calm mind and cognitive capacity seems as well to be very high at the moment. Interesting

Same study at PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18215464

 

[fls]

Okay, so there's no point in looking at this study in order to address this MD's claims, since the two are obviously unrelated anyway.

Otherwise, this study doesn't really add anything new to our understanding of what acupuncture may or may not accomplish. The study itself seems to have been reasonably well done, with blinded assessments and random assignment of interventions and a reasonable choice of animal model and outcome measure(s). Unfortunately, those providing the interventions were not blinded, and as we have already discovered in acupuncture studies, the size of the effect corresponds very closely (in an inverse fashion) to the extent of blinding. It is also not clear from the write-up how the mice were housed in terms of their randomization. The exact correspondence between the size of the groups and the number of mice per cage makes one suspicious that members of each group where housed together, which would add yet another confounding variable to account for differences between groups. Otherwise the data does show a fairly clear difference between groups in the direction you'd expect if the hypothesis were true on the water maze test.

The main problem with this study is that it comes from China. Studies from China are almost universally positive, which indicates that they are doing something wrong. Which means that we have to be cautious in our treatment of how reliable these results may be. For example, the entire experiment takes only 25 days to perform and the results of the testing show a lot of variation. Under those conditions, if you repeat the experiment several times, you may find that you can detect significant between group differences, in a direction which could be taken as support for your hypothesis, something like one-third of the time. Since the experiment takes relatively little investment of resources, those experiments which 'didn't work' may be discarded, especially within a culture which encourages interest only in positive results.

Basically, this experiment contains the same confounders we find in other acupuncture experiments, and it is performed under cultural conditions with known problems with respect to reliability and validity. So it doesn't really help to advance our knowledge.

Linda

 

[Percent]

Linda,

I'm going to push through the handicap of my atrophied hippocampi to thank you for this post and many others .

I found, and joined, the forum in large part b/c of the excellent work you do to inform the public about the sham of chiropractic and acupucture. I happened into JREF after my encounters with woo reached a critical mass and I needed more chutzpah to cope with friends and, unfortunately, physicians, who were pushing me toward it. The final straw was a trusted M.D. suggesting I drink alkaline water and go for acupuncture.

As I looked for information to bolster what I already knew (that my Dr. is a bit of a kook) I found you all. I knew the foundation existed but was unfamiliar with the forum. Obviously you, Linda, keep fighting the fight and doing so with dedication and brilliance. I've wanted to "run into you someplace" so that I could thank you for all your time and work. THANK YOU!!

I don't doubt that with our aging population and the increasing accessibility of acupuncture claims that acupuncture positively impacts cognition will also increase. Of course the hippocampus is documented to react negatively to events such as stress, depression, sleep deprivation, to name a few, so we would expect some impact in the positive direction from placebo.

Interesting that this documented significantly improved maze performance in the experimental groups and that this was a reasonably well designed study. But, as you wrote, we are lacking replication. I'd also like, as you point out, to see the data from the studies that failed to produce significant results. For all I know, the poor little mice who received acupuncture in those studies drowned during their attempts to swim the mazes. Finally, I agree that we are certainly dealing with a biased source.

What we have is a real proliferation of acupuncurists scamming people who are suffering rather than a significant proliferation of neurons, hippocampal or otherwise.

Thank you again for your work. Your posts are having an impact well beyond this forum.

Anne

 

[fls]

Linda,

I'm going to push through the handicap of my atrophied hippocampi to thank you for this post and many others .

I appreciate that. This is how I hope I can be useful, so it's good to hear my delusions occasionally match up with reality.

Linda