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• Clinical Article •
Effects of sham acupuncture on brain activity in migraine patients: A Meta-analysis of neuroimaging-based activation likelihood estimation
WANG Yinan  LIU Xiaobo  JIANG Bo  ZHONG Dongling  LI Yuxi  LI Qinghua  DONG Yuting  LI Juan  ZHANG Yonggang  JIN Rongjiang 

Cite this article as: WANG Y N, LIU X B, JIANG B, et al. Effects of sham acupuncture on brain activity in migraine patients: A Meta-analysis of neuroimaging-based activation likelihood estimation[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(4): 27-35. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.04.004.


[Abstract] Objective To systematically integrate the brain activity changes of patients with migraine after treatment of sham acupuncture, identify the consistent activated/inactivated brain regions, and reveals the central mechanism of sham acupuncture.Materials and Methods This study has been registered on the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews, with the registration number: CRD420251129628. PubMed, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, EMbase, CBM, CNKI, WanFang Data and VIP databases were searched to collect randomized controlled studies on the changes of brain activity before and after sham acupuncture in migraine patients from inception to 6th February 2026. Two researchers independently screened, extracted and evaluated the risk of bias and reporting quality of the included literature using RoB 2.0 and SHARE pseudoacupuncture reporting guidelines. AlE-meta-analysis was performed with GingerALE 3.0.2. The robustness of the results was examined through Jackknife sensitivity analysis.Results A total of 11 studies involving 187 patients with migraine were included. Meta-analysis showed that, compared with pre-treatment, after sham acupuncture in the cumulative effects, the FWE-corrected (P < 0.05) robust deactivated brain regions were located in the left middle temporal gyrus (ALE value = 9.23e-3) and left superior temporal gyrus (ALE value = 7.44e-3); uncorrected exploratory findings (P < 0.001, for reference only) revealed an activated brain region in the left lentiform nucleus (ALE value = 9.24e-3). In the immediate effects, uncorrected exploratory findings (P < 0.001, for reference only) showed deactivated brain regions located in the right middle occipital gyrus (ALE value = 8.14e-3), right middle frontal gyrus (ALE value = 8.41e-3), right caudate nucleus (ALE value = 7.77e-3), right cuneus (ALE value = 8.14e-3), left inferior occipital gyrus (ALE value = 7.53e-3), and bilateral thalamus (ALE value = 7.53e-3) after sham acupuncture.Conclusions Sham acupuncture may modulate multiple brain regions related to attention, pain transmission, sensory integration, and emotion in migraine patients. However, due to the limited number of included studies and some uncorrected results, the aforementioned conclusion requires further verification.
[Keywords] migraine；sham acupuncture；brain activation；magnetic resonance imaging；functional magnetic resonance imaging；activate likelihood estimation；meta-analysis

WANG Yinan1   LIU Xiaobo1   JIANG Bo1   ZHONG Dongling1   LI Yuxi1   LI Qinghua1   DONG Yuting1   LI Juan1, 2   ZHANG Yonggang3*   JIN Rongjiang1*  

1 School of Health Preservation and Rehabilitation, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu 610075, China

2 Affiliated Sichuan Provincial Rehabilitation Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Science and Education Department of the Sichuan Provincial BAYI Rehabilitation Center, Chengdu 610075, China

3 The Office of the President of the Pidu District Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Chengdu 610075, China

Corresponding author: JIN R J, E-mail: cdzyydxjrj@126.com ZHANG Y G, E-mail: 569761744@qq.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2025-12-16
Accepted  2026-03-19
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.04.004
Cite this article as: WANG Y N, LIU X B, JIANG B, et al. Effects of sham acupuncture on brain activity in migraine patients: A Meta-analysis of neuroimaging-based activation likelihood estimation[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(4): 27-35. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.04.004.

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