http://aim.bmj.com Acupuncture in Medicine RSS feed -- recent In this issue articles Acupuncture in Medicine 0964-5284 http://aim.bmj.com/site/homepage/AiM_95x60.gif http://aim.bmj.com http://aim.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/28/4/163?rss=1 Auricular acupuncture (AA): valid therapy or fascinating fantasy? Perhaps the most contentious aspect is the claimed correspondence between the ear zones and the body organs. Enthusiasts for AA claim that the evidence speaks for itself. Sceptics argue that there is no anatomical basis for it, and in particular no real justification for the body to be represented upside down: it seems to be based on analogy with the homunculus in the cerebral cortex but this is more ‘inside out’ than truly upside down. This correspondence is critical: many trials compare ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ sites: if there is no such thing as an ‘incorrect’ point, then no difference will be seen and the conclusion will be that AA is ineffective. So it seems important to make a clear distinction between AA diagnosis, which rests wholly on the correspondence, and AA as treatment which may or may not use the correspondence...]]> 2010-12-08T10:29:26-08:00 info:doi/10.1136/aim.2010.003343 hwp:resource-id:acupmed;28/4/163 British Medical Acupuncture Society 2010-12-01 In this issue 28 4 163 163