Improvements On SPM With Its Application In The Research Of Mechanism Of Acupuncture

Since its nascence in the 1990s, fMRI technology has captured enormous attention and develops accordingly. fMRI inspects the brain non-invasively and has both high spatial and temporal resolutions. It is deemed as a preferred method of investigation in the field of neurosciences.The human brain function is the most active areas of neuroscience. When it comes to analyzing the fMRI data, SPM (Statistical Parametric Mapping) software is among the top choices. This thesis contains lots of modifications which greatly boosts operations of SPM as well as toolboxes facilitating the using of it. A batch operation for processing of large volumes of data is made available to the original version of SPM. And a method is proposed making modifications to the development of SPM more easily. Such modifications can be trials of new algorithms on SPM.General linear model (GLM) is employed in our researches to interpret the mechanism of acupuncture. There isn't a pinpoint explanation to its underlying mechanism. Far as we know, there are many theories formulated hoping to unveil the mechanisms of acupuncture. One of the most widely accepted hypothesizes is that the acupuncture regulates the neural and internal secretion system to release its effect. In the experiment of this paper, acupuncture was performed at ST36 (Zusanli), a main acupoint that is considered modeling the sense of pain. After analyzing the fMRI data, we found that the brain regions related to the pain sensation were active during acupuncture stimulation. But the same phenomenon did not appear during the sham stimulation.