Practicing acupuncture for a living, and seeing positive clinical results day in and day out, I never doubt the power of the medicine I practice. However, there are still individuals out there who do, mainly because they do not understand acupuncture's method of action.

Well, neuroscientists at the University of York and the Hull York Medical School in Great Britain have a just published a study in the prestigious medical journal Brain Research showing via functional MRI's how acupuncture affects the brain and decreases pain levels.

One of the lead researchers, Dr Hugh MacPherson, of the Complementary Medicine Research Group in the University’s Department of Health Sciences, says: “These results provide objective scientific evidence that acupuncture has specific effects within the brain which hopefully will lead to a better understanding of how acupuncture works.”

The scientists next plan is to do a similar study on Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and depression.

The full scientific article will not be available until February 22, 2010, but for more information, you can give the following articles a read:

Acupuncture Helps Brain Take Pain

and

Neuroscientists Study Acupuncture And Give It A Nod