<p style="text-align: center;">CHEN Yuanyuan, ZHAO Yanping, FANG Jiliang, QIAN Tianyi,&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align: center;">HONG Yang, LIU Guiyong, ZHANG Guolei, ,WANG Jun, WANG&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align: center;">Yin, LIU Yong, XU Kaibin, LI Xiaojiao</p><p style="text-align: center;">(1.Dept. of Radiology, 4. Dept. of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Guang An Men Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100053, China; 2.Siemens Healthcare, MR Collaboration NE Asia, Beijing 100102, China; 3.Brain network research center，Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China,)</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Abstract</strong>:&nbsp; <strong>Objective</strong>:&nbsp; To establish the methodology of combining the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (Mega-Press H-MRS) for investigating the correlation between the deactivation in the medial prefrontal cortex evoked by acupuncture at LI4 (Point Hegu) acupoint and&nbsp; the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)&nbsp; concentration ,and optimize the&nbsp; experimental&nbsp; technique&nbsp; and&nbsp; procedure&nbsp; in&nbsp; the&nbsp; preliminary&nbsp; experiment.&nbsp; <strong>Methods</strong>:&nbsp; Twenty healthy&nbsp; adult&nbsp; volunteers&nbsp; were&nbsp; enrolled.&nbsp; During&nbsp; fMRI-BOLD&nbsp; scan,&nbsp; each&nbsp; subject&nbsp; would&nbsp; receive</p><p style="text-align: justify;">acupuncture at right LI4 (Point Hegu) acupoint on the hand. The MR spectroscopy is based on the MEGA-PRESS sequence,it’s region was centered at the both sides of&nbsp; medial prefrontal cortex （MPFC）, the task BOLD were in the block design, including three 30 seconds stimulations with 2 minutes’ interval. The MRS scanning was performed before and after BOLD. The quantitative values of the BOLD positive and negative activations (Pm) and ROI GABA concentrations were calculated after processing the images.<strong> Results</strong>:&nbsp; 20 subjects completed the BOLD scan, which met the&nbsp; postprocessing requirements, 1 std deviation of GABA concentration higher than 15%, were not included&nbsp; in&nbsp; analysis.&nbsp; For&nbsp; BOLD,the&nbsp; average&nbsp; comprehensive&nbsp; value&nbsp; for&nbsp; 20&nbsp; subjects&nbsp; were calculated&nbsp; as&nbsp; positive&nbsp; value （ 8&nbsp; subjects,1.16±0.13 ）&nbsp; &nbsp;and&nbsp; negative&nbsp; value （ 12&nbsp; subjects, －1.32±0.16）;&nbsp; the average amplitude between the post-&nbsp; and pre-&nbsp; acupuncture was（-2.76±6.23）nmol/L&nbsp; for&nbsp; negative&nbsp; subjects,and(2.72±9.47)nmol/L&nbsp; for&nbsp; positive&nbsp; subjects.&nbsp; <strong>Conclusion</strong>:&nbsp; In&nbsp; this study,&nbsp; we&nbsp; established&nbsp; a&nbsp; multimodal-functional&nbsp; (BOLD-fMRI&nbsp; and&nbsp; MRS)&nbsp; method&nbsp; for&nbsp; the quantitative study of brain function. The success rate was acceptable, and the multimodal brain function changes&nbsp; were&nbsp; observed in&nbsp; the&nbsp; brain&nbsp; region&nbsp; during&nbsp; acupuncture,&nbsp; and&nbsp; we could&nbsp; get the quantitative&nbsp; values.The&nbsp; combined&nbsp; BOLD&nbsp; and&nbsp; MRS&nbsp; qualitative&nbsp; method&nbsp; was&nbsp; feasible&nbsp; for&nbsp; test acupuncture response in the brain.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Key&nbsp; Words</strong>:&nbsp; Acupuncture;&nbsp; Functional&nbsp; magnetic&nbsp; resonance&nbsp; imaging;&nbsp; Blood&nbsp; oxygenation&nbsp; level dependent; Magnetic&nbsp; resonance&nbsp; spectroscopy;&nbsp; Medial&nbsp; prefrontal&nbsp; cortex&nbsp; Deactivation;&nbsp; Gammaaminobutyric acid.&nbsp;</p><p><br/></p>