Zeng, Xiangxin, Feng, Chuwen, Zhang, Muhua et al. · Zhongguo zhen jiu = Chinese acupuncture & moxibustion · 2024 · DOI
This study tested whether a specific type of acupuncture called 'mind-regulation electroacupuncture' could help people with ME/CFS who also have anxiety and depression. Researchers used brain imaging to see how the treatment changed activity patterns in the brains of 30 patients compared to 30 healthy people. After 2 weeks of treatment, patients reported less fatigue, anxiety, depression, and sleep problems, and their brain scans showed changes in areas related to emotions and fatigue.
Understanding how acupuncture may modulate brain network dysfunction in ME/CFS with psychiatric comorbidity could expand treatment options for patients who have limited effective therapies. This study provides neuroimaging evidence that acupuncture affects specific brain regions implicated in fatigue, emotion regulation, and sleep—domains severely disrupted in ME/CFS.
This study does not prove that electroacupuncture is an effective ME/CFS treatment because it lacks a sham acupuncture control group, making it impossible to distinguish placebo effects from true physiological effects. The 2-week intervention period is too short to assess durability of benefits or compare efficacy to established treatments. Correlation between brain imaging changes and symptom improvement does not establish causation.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Zeng, Xiangxin, Feng, Chuwen, Zhang, Muhua, Cheng, Weiping, Sun, Zhongren, & Yang, Tiansong (2024). Exploring the central mechanism of mind-regulation electroacupuncture in treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome with anxiety and depression comorbidity based on functional magnetic resonance imaging.. Zhongguo zhen jiu = Chinese acupuncture & moxibustion. https://doi.org/10.13703/j.0255-2930.20230603-k0003
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-zeng-2024-exploring-central,
author = {Zeng, Xiangxin and Feng, Chuwen and Zhang, Muhua and Cheng, Weiping and Sun, Zhongren and Yang, Tiansong},
title = {Exploring the central mechanism of mind-regulation electroacupuncture in treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome with anxiety and depression comorbidity based on functional magnetic resonance imaging.},
journal = {Zhongguo zhen jiu = Chinese acupuncture & moxibustion},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.13703/j.0255-2930.20230603-k0003},
note = {PubMed: 38191152},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/zeng-2024-exploring-central},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/zeng-2024-exploring-central
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