The Efficacy and Cerebral Mechanism of Intradermal Acupuncture for Major Depressive Disorder
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2025-12-30
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is highly prevalent, affecting nearly 4% of the global
population. Pharmacotherapy is the frontline treatment recommended by the guideline, but it
also has some limitations such as delayed onset, inadequate response, and drug resistance.
Intradermal acupuncture (IA) is a method of using short indwelling needles retained under the
skin to produce continuous stimulation for long-term efficacy. It has been reported that IA
combination medication appears to be more valuable than medication alone in the treatment of
MDD, however, there is a lack of high-quality clinical evidence.While several studies have
proposed that manual or electroacupuncture can improve MDD symptoms by modulating brain
networks, the cerebral mechanism of IA as superficial acupuncture for MDD has not been
reported. Hence, we designed a multicentre randomized controlled trial to assess the clinical
efficacy and safety of IA for MDD and preliminarily explore the potential therapeutic
mechanisms for IA by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetic resonance
spectroscopy (MRS).
Phase:
N/A
Details
Lead Sponsor:
Xiaomei Shao
Collaborators:
First People's Hospital of Hangzhou The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University Zhejiang Provincial Tongde Hospital