Preliminary exploration of research method for studying the influence of acupuncture manipulations on electrical signals of spinal dorsal root nerve in rats

When acupuncture acts on the body, the most rapid and direct reaction is the influence on nervous system, which shows as the onset of neural electrical signals. Because of the non-linear characteristic of neural electrical signals, the traditional linear analysis can´t completely reflect the influence of acupuncture on nervous system. In order to analyze the characteristics and regularities of electrical signals evoked by different acupuncture manipulations, and explore new methods for the objectification and quantization study of acupuncture manipulations, non-linear time series and wavelet analysis were employed to analyze the characteristics of electrical signals of spinal dorsal root fine nerve bundle evoked by stimulating Zusanli point (ST36) on normal rats with four acupuncture manipulation methods: lift-thrust reinforcing method (Ltf), lift-thrust reducing method (Ltd), rotate-twirl reinforcing method (Rtf) and rotate-twirl reducing method (Rtd). The result indicated the electrical signals evoked by acupuncture has stationary characteristic; and different electrical signals evoked by different acupuncture manipulations had obvious chaotic characteristic. The non-linear time series and wavelet analysis are effective methods for studying the objectification and quantization of acupuncture manipulation.