UNC researchers to study use of Korean acupuncture in neurological
conditions

http://www.unc.edu/news/newsserv/archives/oct03/acupuncture103103.htm
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By TOM HUGHES
UNC School of Medicine

CHAPEL HILL -- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of
Medicine researchers have received a federal grant to collaborate
with Korean researchers in studying acupuncture's use in treating
major neurological conditions.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of
the National Institutes of Health awarded the two-year $254,740
grant to establish the Korean Acupuncture in Central Nervous System
Disorders Center.

The acupuncture center, to be based at UNC, will coordinate and
oversee parallel research projects carried out at UNC and Kyung Hee
University in Seoul, South Korea. These projects will test the
effectiveness of Korean acupuncture for treating patients who have
migraine headaches, Parkinson's disease, stroke or spinal cord
injury, said Dr. J. Douglas Mann of UNC, the study's principal
investigator and a professor in the School of Medicine's department
of neurology.

"Korean acupuncture has been reported to be effective in treating
most of these conditions in Korea," Mann said. "What we want to see
is whether there are cultural factors that influence outcomes. In
other words, will Korean acupuncture work as well when performed in
the United States as it does when performed in Korea?"

UNC was one of 10 institutions awarded grants as part of the
national center's program called Planning Grants for International
Centers for Research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine. This
program's goal is to establish global collaborations and cross-
cultural exchange among foreign and U.S. institutions to design and
implement research on complementary and alternative medical
approaches that have emerged from traditional indigenous medical
systems.

For this multi-project study, four UNC faculty will be trained in
Korean acupuncture techniques by Korean colleagues. They are Drs.
Michael Lee, professor and chairman of the department of physical
medicine and rehabilitation; Gloria Liu, assistant professor in the
department of physical medicine and rehabilitation; and Remy
Coeytaux, assistant professor, and Wunian Chen, instructor, both in
the department of family medicine.

All four are trained and licensed in Chinese acupuncture and are
using it in their clinical work.

Other UNC co-investigators on the project include Drs. Susan
Gaylord, assistant professor and director of the Program on
Integrative Medicine; David Huang, Ana Felix and Xue Mei Huang,
assistant professors in the department of neurology; Richard
Mailman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology and director of
the department of psychiatry's Division of Psychobiology and
Research; Weili Lin, associate professor of radiology, neurology and
biomedical engineering and director of magnetic resonance research
at UNC; and Aysenil Belger, associate professor of psychiatry and
director of neuroimaging research in psychiatry.

The UNC researchers chose to work with their counterparts at Kyung
Hee University in part because of Lee's contacts there, Mann said.
In addition, the Korean researchers shared an interest in conducting
research into the use of acupuncture for major neurological
conditions.

The other institutions that received the planning grants were Bastyr
University, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons,
Harvard University Medical School, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine,
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the University of California at San
Francisco, the University of Maryland at Baltimore, the University
of Missouri and the University of Washington.