"The efficacy of acupuncture has been demonstrated in a lab setting with fMRI."
Acupuncture has always been controversial -- and, occasionally, dismissed outright as pseudo-scientific -- but it has also been consistently effective for many of the people who have experienced it. Now, German researchers have conducted a study in which volunteers were monitored with fMRI, first while receiving electric shocks and again while receiving the same shocks but with acupuncture needles in place. A marked difference became obvious in the imaging of the subjects' brains; pain perception was visibly reduced in the second case, suggesting that acupuncture can indeed help relieve pain.
