Information communication analysis of EEG signals evoked by manual acupuncture

Manual acupuncture (MA) is an effective therapeutic technique, which can be equivalent to an external mechanical stimulus to the neural system. However, the regulation and action mechanism of acupuncture is still unclear. In this paper, mutual information method and Lempel-Ziv complexity method (MILZC) are combined to investigate the effect of MA on the complexity of information communication between different brain regions based on electroencephalograph (EEG) signals. An experiment is designed that acupuncture at Zusanli acupoint of right leg with four different frequencies (i.e. 50, 100, 150 and 200 times/min) and collect EEG signals synchronously. It is found that the complexity of information communication is enhanced when acupuncture, where MA with 100 and 150 times/min are more effective than that with 50 and 200 times/min, and that contralateral hemisphere behaviors are more prominent than ipsilateral hemisphere's. All these findings suggest that MA has effect on the brain and MILZC method can quantify changes of information communications between different brain regions.