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Abstract
In the current study, we investigated whether or not stimulation at vision and nonvision-related
acupoints was able to induce similarity in the time domain, although stimulation at
different acupoints could produce similar spatial distributions. This phenomenon still
remains uncertain and contradictory. We introduced a novel experimental paradigm using
a modified non-repeated event-related (NRER) design, and utilized the methods of independent
component analysis (ICA) combined with seed correlated functional connectivity analysis
to locate visual cortical activations and to study their temporal characteristics
during electro-acupuncture (EAS) at vision-related acupoint GB 37 and nonvision-related
acupoint KI 8. Results showed that strong activations were present in the visual cortical
areas (BA 17/18/19) at both acupoints, but temporal correlation analysis indicated
that they were modulated in opposite directions during the resting state after acupuncture.
Our results revealed that acupuncture at vision and nonvision-related acupoints can
induce similar activations in spatial distribution but different modulation effects
temporally.