Electroacupuncture stimulation modulates functional brain connectivity in the treatment of pediatric cerebral palsy: a case report

Zongbo Sun; Chenglin Li; Laixin Sun; Wenwen Yang; Xueli Qu; Yuanyuan Li; Xiao Duan; Fengyu Guo; Xuejing Sun; Mingzhu Yang; Tong Qi; Longyun Zhu; Shuai Wang; Yu Xia; Yanan Du; Shuhui Luo; Lingling Li; Yu Gu; Yaya Wang; Li Yang

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1392958

Electroacupuncture stimulation modulates functional brain connectivity in the treatment of pediatric cerebral palsy: a case report

Front Psychiatry. 2024 Apr 22:15:1392958. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1392958. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Zongbo Sun^#¹, Chenglin Li^#², Laixin Sun^#², Wenwen Yang², Xueli Qu³, Yuanyuan Li³, Xiao Duan³, Fengyu Guo³, Xuejing Sun⁴, Mingzhu Yang³, Tong Qi², Longyun Zhu², Shuai Wang³, Yu Xia³, Yanan Du³, Shuhui Luo³, Lingling Li³, Yu Gu³, Yaya Wang³, Li Yang³

Affiliations

¹ School of Medicine, Liao Cheng University, Liaocheng, Shandong, China.
² Department of Rehabilitation, Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Dongchangfu, Liaocheng, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Dongchangfu, Liaocheng, China.
⁴ Medical Genetics Laboratory, Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Dongchangfu, Liaocheng, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Pediatric cerebral palsy (CP) is a non-progressive brain injury syndrome characterized by central motor dysfunction and insufficient brain coordination ability. The etiology of CP is complex and often accompanied by diverse complications such as intellectual disability and language disorders, making clinical treatment difficult. Despite the availability of pharmacological interventions, rehabilitation programs, and spasticity relief surgery as treatment options for CP, their effectiveness is still constrained. Electroacupuncture (EA) stimulation has demonstrated great improvements in motor function, but its comprehensive, objective therapeutic effects on pediatric CP remain to be clarified.

Methods: We present a case of a 5-year-old Chinese female child who was diagnosed with CP at the age of 4. The patient exhibited severe impairments in motor, language, social, and cognitive functions. We performed a 3-month period of EA rehabilitation, obtaining resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) of the patient at 0 month, 3 months and 5 months since treatment started, then characterized brain functional connectivity patterns in each phase for comparison.

Results: After a 12-month follow-up, notable advancements were observed in the patient's language and social symptoms. Changes of functional connectivity patterns confirmed this therapeutic effect and showed specific benefits for different recovery phase: starting from language functions then modulating social participation and other developmental behaviors.

Conclusion: This is a pioneering report demonstrating the longitudinal effect of EA stimulation on functional brain connectivity in CP patients, suggesting EA an effective intervention for developmental disabilities (especially language and social dysfunctions) associated with pediatric CP.

Keywords: brain functional connectivity; electroacupuncture; language; meta-analysis; pediatric cerebral palsy.

Publication types

Case Reports

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by grants from the Medical and Health Science and Technology Development Plan Project of Shandong Province of China (202120010871).