Progress in the mechanism of acupuncture intervention on pain emotion and pain cognition mediated by limbic system

Abstract Pain is a complex physiological and psychological activity, involving at least three dimensions, including pain sensation, emotion, cognition. Acupuncture can clearly relieve the sensation of patients improve emotion cognition induced by pain; acupuncture participates in multi-dimensional regulation through brain regions limbic system such as anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), amygdala (AMY), hippocampus. By analyzing relevant literature, it has been found that on mainly related to activation pertinent opioid receptors ACC, decrease expression extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), promotion glutamic acid (Glu) A1, metabotropic glutamate receptor-1 (mGluR1), γ-aminobutyric aminobutyric (GABA) B2 protein AMY. The elevation A (PKA) phospho-p38 mitogen-activated (phospho-p38 MAPK) inhibition cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)/PKA/cAMP response element-binding (CREB) signaling pathway ACC.