The evidence of modern science demonstrates that the referred pain is due to the cortex mistaking the afferent signals from internal organs, which converge with the signals from peripheral afferents in the segmental innervations. What interesting us is that the substantial bases for the special relationship between meridians and zang-fu in TCM is the same as that of referred pain. In this study, we applied electro-physiological methods to investigate the actual relationship between referred pain in Coronary Cardiopathy and heart meridian of TCM: (1) Observing the different responses of heart sympathetic nerves on the stimulation of ipsilateral acupoints on the forelimb Shenmen H7, Shaohai H3 (Heart meridian, ulnar side) and Taiyuan Lu9, Chize Lu5 (Lung meridian, radial side) respectively.

Results: The response threshold of left ulnar side is 2.72 ±0.35mA (n=13 ), that of left radia1 side is 3.94±0.38mA (n=13 ), P<0.05. The stimulation at the acupoints of heart meridian with 1.5 times threshold can evoke 19.08±4.71 spikes (n=13), that at the acupoints of lung meridian can evoke 11.62±2.33 spikes (n=13). It has significant difference statistically (P<0.05). The results show that the relationship between heart meridian and heart is more close than that between Lung meridian and heart; (2) Influence of stimulating heart sympathetic nerve on evoked electromyo-responses of heart meridian and lung meridian of forelimb. A bipolar electrode was placed on heart sympathetic nerve for stimulation while a pair of needle electrodes were placed on heart meridian (Shenmen H7, Shaohai H3) or lung meridian (Taiyuan Lu9, Chize Lu5) for recording. Results: The electromyo-responses in heart meridian evoked by each stimulation (duration=2msec, interval=4msec, trains=5) are 4.3l (n=13), while that in Lung meridian are l.39 (n=l3). The threshold for evoking electromyo-responses in heart meridian is 1.66mA (left) and 2.36mA (right) respectively. This is lower than that on Lung meridian: 3.03mA (left), 2.57mA (right). It shows that the relationship between electromyo-responses of heart meridian and heart sympathetic never is closer than that of lung meridian.

By Rong Peijing, Xu Weidong Ben Hui & Zhu Bing.