The aim of this study is to verify the response of auricular skin to interoceptive stimuli in two groups of patients suffering from a gastroenteral pathology.

Patients were submitted to a complete examination of auricle, in order to detect morphological alterations and painful points, and to a diagnostic digestive endoscopy.

A group of patients took benzodiazepines at the moment of auricular examination; the second group did not take any drug. Leggi tutto...

The Authors report their experience with the placebo, an essential step in the clinical study of reflexotherapy.

They assert that also in this branch of medicine it is possible to carry out a "double blind" clinical experimentation by means of placebo, that is, an essential condition in order to develop a scientific assessment of both the limits and the potentialities of reflexotherapy.
 

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The Authors have investigated the antihallucinogenic and sedative effects of auricular points R and shen menn during surgery under ketamine anesthesia.

The results demonstrate that the insertion of the needle in point R is very efficient in reducing hallucinations of ketamine emergence, while the insertion of needle in auricular point shen menn causes only a brief period of sedation in the beginning of the emergence period.

The acupunctural technique employed by the Authors has been shown to increase considerably approbation of ketamine anesthesia.
 

Ketamine, 2-(0-chlorophenyl)-2-(methylamino)-cyclohexanone, is a general anesthetic which on awakening produces psychic disturbance correlated with the metabolism of serotonin.

Since it is know that acupuncture increases cerebral serotonin, the blood levels of total and free tryptophan, its precursor, were studied in healthy volunteers to find out if the anti-hallucinatory action of acupuncture is dependent on an increase in cerebral serotonin.