Prefrontal cortex is the key region involved in the patient–acupuncturist interaction
INS, GCA
This study found that the increased INS was mostly present over the PFC including SFC, MFC, and IFC, and positively correlated with the needling sensation. PFC is critical for top‐down regulation of attention, emotion, decision‐making, and higher cognitive functions (Arnsten & Rubia, In this study, the INS increments were found within PFC of “patient”–acupuncturist dyad, and significantly related to the needling sensation. The results indicated that needling sensations may have contributed to the increase of INS between “patient” and acupuncturist. Compared to the “patient” in SAG, the “patient” in VAG experience stronger, much complex and lasting needling sensations. At the same time, the acupuncturist also reported stronger needling sensations from her fingers holding the needle when performing verum acupuncture rather than sham acupuncture manipulation. In fact, the acupuncturist did not feel any needling sensations when performing the sham acupuncture manipulation. This deeper and stronger verum acupuncture stimulation elicits more attention from both “patient” and acupuncturist, and activates deeper, sub‐dermal receptors, etc., which in turn leads to more significant emotional, cognitive, and interoceptive processing (Napadow et al., In the current study, channel‐wised INS analysis indicated that 11 channels at the PFC showed significantly increased INS in the VAG, and none of all the channels in SAG showed significant changes of INS. These findings suggested that PFC is an important region involved in the “patient”–acupuncturist interaction during acupuncture stimulation. INS in PFC might support interpersonal information transfer by aligning neural processes in the “patient”–acupuncturist dyad.In order to further examine this interpretation, GCA was used to determine whether brain activity recorded from the “patient” could be predicted by that recorded from the acupuncturist. Interestingly, GCA demonstrated that there were no significant differences in coupling directionality between the “patient” and the acupuncturist. Despite the common belief that the acupuncturist plays a more predominant and active role in acupuncture treatment (Liu, 