Comparative Study Of Optical Transmission Properties Along Human Meridian And Surrounding Non-meridian Tissue

As an important part of Chinese medicine, the meridian theory was definitely different from contemporary medicine and had always been playing the leading role in respect of diagnosis and treatment of the traditional Chinese medicine. From1950’s on, the Physical existences of human body acupuncture points and meridians have been the academic center of scientific research of modern Chinese medicine. In addition, the principle of biological medicine and photonics and its measurement technology had made the study of linkage between optical properties of human tissue and its possible, when by means of measurements of optical transmission and distribution of some human tissue irradiated by a laser at special wavelength.In present work, a home-made, automatic measurement system was applied to monitor the intensity of diffuse reflection light. We carried out real-time and non-destructive measurements of optical transmission and distribution of some human tissues, when their surfaces were irradiated by a laser. Therefore, the information for optical transmission characteristics and physiological status of different tissues should be acquired through measuring the intensity of diffuse reflection light around human meridian zone.A light beam808nm from a laser diode (LD) acted as a probe to study optical transmission characteristics of human meridian and surrounding non-meridian tissue. With which we measured the intensities of diffuse reflection light, emitted from human small intestine and heart meridian tissues, as well as their surrounding non-meridian tissues, respectively, within a whole day. Through analysis of the attenuation degree of experimental data and by comparison between both of two groups of data of intensities of diffuse light, A dramatic difference (P<0.05) was observed between the diffuse light intensities along meridian and those from surrounding non-meridian tissues even under the same experimental condition, potentially revealing that there truly existed one special way in human body to exhibit different biological feature and reaction from surrounding tissues. Meanwhile the intensities data of diffuse light presented temporal periodicity, surprisingly in accordance with temporal features of Qi-blood transportation and meridian running in Chinese meridian theory. As for measurements to human small intestine meridian and surrounding tissue, the decay of diffuse light intensity along this meridian tended to maximum at12:00correlating with the running status of small intestine meridian in a day. This correlation offered a strong reference to Qi-blood transportation and existence of human meridian.The stability, measuring effect and resolution of the experimental setup, including the impacts of the chopper onto the optical transmission, have simultaneously been investigated.