Effects of acupuncture on the relationship between cerebral hemodynamics and arterial blood pressure in patients with hypertension

Abstract The present study aimed to investigate the effect of an auricular acupuncture intervention on the relationship between changes in oxyhemoglobin concentration (Δ [O2Hb]) and arterial blood pressure (ABP). The cerebral oxygenation signals in the bilateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), sensorimotor cortex (SMC), and temporal lobe cortex (TLC) of 15 patients with hypertension were measured by a 24-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device before (State_R) and after (State_AT) the auricular acupuncture intervention. Coupling strength was used to quantitatively evaluate the strength of the couplings between ABP and Δ [O2Hb] in low-frequency oscillations (LF, 0.07–0.2 ​Hz) and very-low-frequency oscillations (VLF, 0.02–0.07 ​Hz). Results showed that the changes in wavelet amplitudes in the LF and VLF intervals did not exhibit significant differences after auricular acupuncture. The coupling strength from ABP to Δ [O2Hb] was significantly lower in the LF range after auricular acupuncture in the bilateral PFC, SMC, and TLC (p ​