Application Of Acupoints And Meridians For The Acupuncture Treatment Of Heart Disease: A Complex Network-based Literature Study

Objective:Using complex network to analyse ancient and modern literatures of heart diseases with acupuncture treatment. Summarize the rules of acupoints selection and combination. Confirm the feasibility of complex network. To provide basis and suggestion for clinical acupoints selection.Methods:Collect ancient and modern literatures of heart diseases with acupuncture treatment. Confirm the ancient and modern name referring to "classification and code of diseases and ZHENG of traditional Chinese medicine" and "dictionary of Chinese and western medicine of disease control"'edited by Lin Zhaogeng. Collect ancient literatures basing on "The abstract of zhenjiu books and journals of China". Searching modern literatures with manual retrieval and computer retrieval. Bring in literatures of acupuncture prescriptions including acupoints in fourteen meridians and intervention means with acupuncture?moxibustion or electroacupuncture. After strict data sieving, input qualified literatures, build heart diseases acupuncture literatures database and acupoints database and draw acupoints networks. Then using complex network to evaluate the importance of acupoints, find effective acupoints couple and key acupoints group. Explore the meridians and specific points with frequency statistics and community detection at the same time.Results:There are totally 91 acupoints nodes in ancient acupoints network. The degree ranking is:Shenmen(HT7), Daling(PC7), Neiguan(PC6), Xinshu(BL15), Juque(CV14). The betweenness centrality ranking is:Xinshu(BL15), Daling(PC7), Zhongchong(PC9), Neiguan(PC6), Shenmen(HT7). The eigenvector centrality ranking is:Shenmen(HT7), Daling(PC7), Juque(CV14), Neiguan(PC6), Zutonggu(BL66). The frequency ranking is:Xinshu(BL15), Juque(CV14), Daling(PC7), Neiguan(PC6), Shenmen(HT7). The key acupoints group includes 14 acupoints such as Shenmen(HT7) and Daling(PC7). Acupoints of acupuncture prescriptions widely distributed in fourteen meridians, which used mostly is the acupoints in hand-jueyin pericardium meridian. Shu-stream point, yuan-primary point and crossing point are most frequently used specific points. Acupoints groups are mostly devided into specific points group and acupints in chest and abdormen group. There are totally 83 acupoints nodes in modern acupoints network. The degree ranking is:Neiguan(PC6), Xinshu(BL15), Danzhong(CV17), Shenmen(HT7), Jueyinshu(BL14). The betweenness centrality ranking is.-Neiguan(PC6), Yanglinquan(GB34), Xinshu(BL15), Shenmen(HT7), Danzhong(CV17). The eigenvector centrality ranking is:Neiguan(PC6), Xinshu(BL15), Danzhong(CV17), Shenmen(HT7), Sanyinjiao(SP6). The frequency ranking is:Neiguan(PC6), Xinshu(BL15), Danzhong(CV17), Shenmen(HT7), Zusanli(ST36). The key acupoints group includes 41 acupoints such as Neiguan(PC6), Xinshu(BL15). Acupoints of acupuncture prescriptions widely distributed in fourteen meridians, which used mostly is the acupoints in hand-jueyin pericardium meridian. Luo-connecting point, eight confluence point and back-shu point are most frequently used specific points. Acupoints groups are mostly devided into specific points group and pericardium meridian and heart meridian group.Conclusions:The ancient and modern acupoints networks both are scale-free network which have the properties of small world. Acupuncture treatment for heart disease follows the rules of "choosing points along meridians" and pays attention to the selection of adjacent acupoints and specific points. The meridians and specific points have great influence for group division. When treating heart disease with acupuncture, it's suitable to prioritize the acupoints. To exert the best synergistic effect, centering on the important acupoints in network and selecting key acupoints group is important.