ABSTRACT
Many patients who receive general acupuncture treatment have many complaints concerning their autonomic nervous systems. Applying CMI and CMI type classification (Abe method-a variation of CMI) to 100 new patients who came to our clinic last year, we found vegetative dystonia in half of them. Upon this finding, the following examinations were carried out by means of an function test of autonomic nervous system developed by Kageyama et al.: the coefficient of variation (CV) of R-R interval in ECG obtained through the function test is regarded as an expression of vagal function.<br>(1) Using this test, the participation of the autonomic nervous system in the condition of those patients who visited our clinic was examined.<br>(2) Effects of acupuncture treatment on the autonomic nervous system were examined.<br>(3) Acupuncture stimulation was separately applied to S36 (Zusanli), P4 (Ximen) and Liv3 (Taichong) to examine the influence of the acupuncture point location on the CV obtained through the test.<br>Results:<br>(1) 15 new patients (25%-comparatively high rate) showed low CV (less than 2%) of R-R interval in ECG.<br>(2) In some cases, acupuncture treatment caused an increase in CV.<br>(3) Acupuncture caused pulse infrequens: R-R interval showed a tendency toward prolongation during <i>the in situ needle technique</i> and after <i>withdrawing the needle</i> on each of the three points (S36, P4 and Liv3). CV increased after <i>withdrawing the needle</i> on either S36 or Liv3 and shortly after <i>needle insertion</i> and after <i>withdrawing the needle</i> on P4.<br>These result suggest that many patients who receive acupuncture treatment have additional disorder in parasympathetic nervous system which can be improved through acupuncture.