Acupuncture for Inflammatory Pain and Central Sensitization - A Pilot Study
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01945190. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Acupuncture is used extensively by patients worldwide for a variety of illnesses. While research is beginning to show effectiveness in clinical pain, the mechanisms underlying how these effects are evoked are poorly understood. Experimental models in healthy human volunteers can more closely control the variables of acupuncture needling and begin to separate out the relative contribution of specific components of needling and needle stimulation. By examining acupuncture's effects on experimental inflammatory models with well-characterized physiologic mechanisms, hypotheses can begin to be generated regarding how acupuncture produces its clinical effects. We propose to establish a model which could be used as a template to examine the individual components contributing to acupuncture's clinical effects on inflammation and pain. We hypothesize that acupuncture will have analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects on a ultraviolet B induced cutaneous lesion as well as a model of heat pain testing which activates central sensitization. Twenty healthy human volunteers will participate in a crossover study with active acupuncture and sham acupuncture interventions. They will be tested for their minimal erythemal dose (MED) to ultraviolet B exposure. An experimental lesion at 3x MED will be administered on the lower leg. Background information will be collected which could affect individuals' sensitivity to pain such as anxiety and depression, as well as their expectations regarding acupuncture treatment. The following day they will return for the first experimental day. A measurement with Laser Doppler will quantify the inflammation in the ultraviolet B lesion. Heat pain testing will be performed using a computer controlled thermode both on and off the ultraviolet B lesion. On-lesion testing will be for heat pain threshold. Off-lesion testing will examine temporal summation of heat pain. Next, a licensed acupuncturist will perform either true electroacupuncture or sham electroacupuncture in the region adjacent to the ultraviolet B lesion. Participants are blinded to the intervention, as is the examiner collecting data. Afterwards, Laser Doppler and heat pain testing will be repeated. The difference between pre-acupuncture and post-acupuncture measurements will represent the acupuncture -induced analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. Participants will return for another ultraviolet B exposure adjacent to the first, and will receive whichever sham or true acupuncture intervention was not performed on the first study day.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01945190
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 15 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 70 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Aug 31, 2013
- Primary completion
- Sep 30, 2013
- Completion
- Sep 30, 2013
- Last update posted
- Oct 16, 2013
2013
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stanford University | Stanford | California | 94304 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01945190, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Oct 16, 2013 · Synced Sep 12, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01945190 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.