针灸疗法是中国传统医学中治疗疼痛性疾病的经典方法之一。近年来临床上针刺麻醉的应用

大大促进了关于针刺镇痛问题的研究。在西方医学中

近年来关于吗啡镇痛和脑刺激镇痛的研究

以及内源性鸦片样物质的发现

使疼痛和镇痛的研究得到长足的The effect of acupuncture analgesia in rat was assessed by the tail-flick method and was triedto correlate with the changes in the cerebral content of serotonin(5-HT)and the endogenous opiate-like substances(OLS)

Measures were taken to lower the cerebral content of 5-HT or to block theeffect of OLS to see their effect on acupuncture analgesia.The interrelationship between 5-HTcontent and OLS activity was also monitored in different physiological and pharmacologicalsituations.The results indicated that the effect of acupuncture analgesia was intimately related to thecerebral 5-HT content and OLS activity and the extent to which they were mobilized during thecourse of acupuncture.There was an intimate interrelationship between the cerebral 5-HT contentand the OLS activity and these two neurochemical substrates seemed to be functionally compensatoryto each other.