Human Spinal Cord Injury,
New and Emerging Approach to Treatment
Reykjavik, Islande, 31 mai - 2 juin 2001
Laserpuncture: an Alternative for Spinal Cord Injuries
Laserponcture® is based on the foundations of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a quantum explanation of the “energetic physiology of the acupunctural network.” This technique of care settled by Albert Bohbot, independent researcher in neurosciences, is based on the discovery of an acupunctural matrix of 300 points, complementary to the classic network.
Applied to the cutaneous points on the abdomen or on the back, the infrared laser triggers a dialog with the part of the body under the lesion, under the shape of tingling, hot, cold, nothing, etc. This phenomenon of propagated sensation along the canals (PSC) is the expression of the Qi and its appearance is in contradiction with the remote texts specifying that it disappears in the case of complete spinal cord injury.
The solicitation of the acupuncture point is accompanied by a generalized polarization at the end of a couple of minutes. It is revealed by a pinkish colour of the skin and a white dermographism. The laser triggers the release of a generalized sub-cutaneous neurotransmitter that could be histamin. This phenomenon is to be found for all the patients: normal or spinal cord injured.
The choice of the points is specific for every patient.
Laserponcture® allows motor, sensitive and visceral recoveries. It thus brings information that takes the neuronal ways.
The way it works : according to Albert Bohbot, under the laser action, the brain is able to convert the nervous impulse conduction – physiologically electrochemical – into an electromagnetic post-lesion conduction, through the conversion of wavelength of the potential of normal depolarisation, allowing to cross the lesion.
In the beginning was acupuncture.
As soon as High Antiquity, Chinese described a medical science whose fundamental idea is that Man and Nature stick close together : acupuncture. According to the remote texts dating back to 5000 years and compilations of the Nei Jing Su Wen, tradition dating back from Vth to IIIrd centuries before J.C., it allowed them to notice that whenever an organ of the human body was disturbed in its function for any reason, some punctual areas of the skin became sensitive. According to the disturbed organ, the location of the points varied. They drew the conclusion that for one given organ corresponded given cutaneous points, located on a network : the meridians network (or canalar theory).
This antique medical science came to France in the 16th centurey thanks to the Jesuites missionaries. It was developed at the beginning of the 20th centure (1926) by George SOULIE DE MORAND, he was the French ambassador in China at the time.
In 1979, we got interested in the acupuncture treaties and we intituively noted that the acupunctural network described was not complete. Thus we gave prominence to a complementary network on an original matrix close to 300 points and according to which we lead our works without ever using a needle.
The inoffensive character of the first laser we settled allowed us to obtain an experimental protocol on human within a hospital context and without making experiments on animals. Thanks to this, we may have won 20 years and even developed a technology which would not have known those results on animals (example of penicilline from Lord FLEMMING), the reason being the difficulties to apply our matrix to animal species.
The lack of knowledge about close mechanisms consecutive to a traumatism of the spinal cord leading to paraplegia or quadriplegia, has lead us since 1979 to wonder about the following hypothesis : associating the acupunctural theory and an infrared laser.
Since then, we carried out this thought. At first, it was an experimental protocol concerning the effects of acupuncture on rheumatic pains, at the Regional Universitary Hospital Center (CHRU) of Jules COURMONT in Lyon-Sud, service of Professor BOUVIER.
This experimentation lead us to the belief that the acupunctural and/or neoacupunctural theory associated to an adapted device, LASER, allowed a therapeutic approach of spinal cord injuries. Thus we studied acupuncture through the Nei Jing Su Wen, the fundamental book of acupuncture. This book specifies there is an immaterial energy circulating within a virtual network - the acupunctural network - creating and maintaining life.
This vision « of energy » brought our thought towards a physical or quantic explanation of what we can call « physiology of the acupunctural network ». We find this notion of polarity in the Chinese thinking where :
The Yang (+), positive pole is the active
The Yin (-), negative pole is the passive
According to certain antique texts, only the Yang has an intrinsically quality that can be modified. The Yin (-) is invariable, we took this hypothesis. It is thus the imbalance of the Yang (+) towards the Yin (-) that triggers disease.
The energy circulating through Yin and Yang meridians and networks is the Qi (pronounced « tchee »).
The Qi expresses and presents itself to our observation as a phenomenon propagating along the PSC.
Qi would have been at the origin of acupuncture and thus of the meridian theory. According to the documents found in the district of Mawangdui in 1974 (dating back to 200 before J.C.), it would have preceded the discovery of acupuncture points and visceral theory. This PSC expresses itself in the body :
By the sensation of something spreading,
Or flowing, according to a linear route reproducing :
- The partial or total course of a meridian,
- Or a group of meridians,
- Or collateral visceral branches.
This phenomenon can be induced by the excitation of points or by a cutaneous electrod developing a low frequency stimulation between 10 and 20 Hz. The flowing sensation spreads over a width of 1 or 2 cm at limbs level and ten or so cm at trunk level. The speed of this sensation would be variable, generally it is slow, and can reach a few centimeters to 20 centimeters per second. The propagation is in both ways from the stimulated point, the speed would be increased by local heat and decreased by cold.
According to the works lead within the context of the Beijin Symposium in 1979 at the College of Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) of Chengdu, by the research group of acupunctural and meridian anesthesia, and by the acupuncture and moxibustion department affiliated to the Shandong Hospital, College of Chinese Traditional Medicine, it seems that this PSC disappear in complete sections of the spinal cord. In the incomplete sections, this potential would be residual and could practice a jump at the nervous stage of the lesion (particular case : it would be kept in severe lesions of the back spinal area).
During our experimental protocol at the Jules COURMONT Hospital, we had noticed that the stimulation of points by LASER created a language expressed by the patient, like tickling, stings, nothingness, heat, cold, as many phenomena of subjective opinions and sometimes having no relation with the considered pathology.
Later on, we got in touch with our first quadriplegic patient who was a partial medullary C6-C7 [complete luxation of C6 on C7 and rotary luxation of C5 on C6] injured in 1982 who began laserponcture® on 2nd July 1990. We were immediately amazed at his capacity to describe specific sensations under the lesion, concerning cutaneous territories or segments of limbs, trunk, even of the whole part under the lesion. This dialog between the young quadriplegic and his body through puncture with laser on a network ensuing from the acupunctural network was a true revelation. We held a journal of his reactions point after point during his whole set of sessions, i.e. about 2 years session after session. Further on, we noted that all the medullary injured individuals we were able to receive laserponcture could set up a dialog with the part of their body under the lesion in the same way. Whether it was on classical acupuncture points or on the one we identified, the collected information was similar from one individual to the other, man or woman, whatever the level of the lesion and complete or incomplete.
For example : on this young quadriplegic C6-C7, on the 08/13/90, bladder meridian point 39, he described the following sensations :
Electric power at the level of sacrum and right foot
Pins and needles in the whole body
Sensation of beating in legs, thighs, back and stomach
Contractions in fingers
Small shivering at level of thighs and lower limbs
On the 10/29/90, bladder meridian point 40 right, the observations were the following :
Electric power in right foot
Contraction of left and right buttocks and left thigh
Sensations of having hands in gloves, with sensation of circulation
Circulation in lower limbs
Burning in glans
Icy fluid in stomach
We were able to observe that the earlier lserponcture was applied after the accident, the quicker the recoveries took place. This opinion is shared with other authors who have studied the relationships between spinal cord injuries and acupuncture.
Those observations accompanied by motor and sensitive recoveries encourage us to consider that there is a real potential between laserponcture® - as it is applied - and spinal cord injuries from the point of view of restoration and recovery of the voluntary locomotor and sensitive functions. Under the laser action, we intuitively consider that the brain is able to convert the impulse conduction - which is physiologically electrochemical - in an a post-injury electromagnetical conduction by converting the depolarization potential in wavelengths. The depolarization potential qualifies the impulse spreading expression in a normal human body, allowing it to cross the lesion and the glial scar at this level. Our approach to using an infrared laser in spinal cord injuries therapeutic, finds its first explanation in the LAMBERT-BOUGUER law. This law specifies that a luminous radiation falling onto a solid body, intereacts with it by exchanging energy. Thus, if in a given area of the luminous spectrum, a solid body is strongly absorbent, it strongly reflects the light of the same field of spectrum. The zone of interaction seems to be a dermatom intereacting with the corresponding myelomer. Over the whole cutaneous area runs meridians uniting together myelomers.
Skin polarization :
We observed that the patient’s skin turns pinkinsh even red and not pruriginous a couple of minutes after the beginning of the laser session. It appears like a generalized cutaneous polarization, revealed by a white dermographism when we draw a line on the cutaneous coat with the nail. A white line appears, circled by a more red area. The laser seems to trigger the excretion of a generalized sub-cutaneous neurotransmitter that looks like histamin. This hypothesis of a link between the histamin metabolism and the mode of action of acupuncture is suggested by Mr SOULIE DE MORANT in 1951 in the preface of NIBOYET’s book.
Is it about the circulating histamin which is in the mast cells ? And under the laser action, do the white corpuscles release their histamin whitout its allergic effect ? Or, is it another neurotransmitter ?
The scientific research discovered the presence of histamin in the hypothalamus and in the front and back hypophisis lobes. However, until now, they evoked its role of cerebral synaptic mediator without being able to bring it to the fore.
Would histamin also have a role of nervous peripheral system neurotransmitter ?
Would it be secreted by the adrenalin glands ?
It then sets the hypothesis of a possible activation of the adrenalin glands and hypothalamus under the laserponcture® action.
This observation is constant in the SCI individuals as well as normal individuals, whatever the point of puncture used.
We may think that there is an interaction between the human body (solid) and the infrared radiation used, both interacting within the human body and with the aid of the acupunctural network or neoacupunctural network as we approached it. This network would allow the spreading of the impulse beyond the constituted and irrevocable medullary lesion.
The question we can rightfully wonder is the interaction between induced energy, the enhanced network, and the body biochemistry.
According to Dr JOHNSTON’s article, (Acupuncture and
Spinal Cord Dysfunction - In Paraplegia News - September 1998),
I quote :
"[…] Although the theory behind
acupuncture is based on centuries of empirical, clinical observations, it
was developed without the benefit of modern physiological and anatomical
insights. Because the idea of an intangible life-force qi flowing through
anatomically undefined meridians seemed far-fetched to those trained in
western medicine, it was dismissed for many years. Any effects were often
attributed to heightened suggestibility, although the critics could not
explain how such suggestibility would work in animals and young children.
Scientists have now proposed a number of physiological
mechanisms for acupuncture
The procedure stimulates neural pathways and mediates a variety of
neurotransmitter systems. For example, acupuncture has been shown to
stimulate muscle sensory nerves, which send messages to the spinal cord,
midbrain, and pituitary. This stimulation releases pain-reducing molecules
called endorphins and cortisol-producing hormones that help conditions
such as arthritis. Acupuncture points often correspond to skin areas with
unique anatomical and electrical properties. Through the release of
specific molecules, it appears that acupuncture can dilate blood vessels,
thereby improving circulation.
Since Eastern medicine assumes that physiological and molecular alterations are based on changes in energy flow, are acupuncture-induced hormonal and neurotransmitter changes secondary to a still scientifically undefined qi mechanism? Some investigators now believe this is so. They propose that the body's qi energy may correspond to very subtle bioelectromagnetic fields. Acupuncture perturbs these fields; the perturbation is then magnified through more traditional physiological mechanisms. Most living systems are sensitive to such low fields. The contribution of these fields to our biological understanding has been minimal due to difficulties measuring them and the traditional emphasis on molecular mechanisms.
[…]traumatic paraplegia is the consequence of damages in the Du or Governor meridian (see figure). These damages, in turn, affect the yang qi energy of the entire body. The goal of treatment is to clear and activate meridian channels, reversing the stagnation of qi."
End of quotation.The studies lead on infrared allowed to determine that it presents possibilities for restructuration and cellular restoration. Besides, the infrared in our conception is able to carry information.
The personal and intuitive notion we evoked in the field of the electromagnetical conduction of the impulse may find a beginning of explanation in the approach of waves by ALVEN (described in 1942 by Hannes ALVEN, Swedish astrophysician). The magnetic field induced within the acupunctural network may be considered - in those cases - as the vector of a fluid mixed to the material fluid. Indeed, if the field-matter interaction is high, these two fluids will move jointly, the magnetic field will be « frozen in the matter. » Then the environment can propagate special waves of low frequency called magnetohydrodynamic waves, of which ALVEN waves are the most simple. Thus, we can have an intellectual representation of the functioning of an acupuncture meridian and then of the whole graph of the acupunctural network under the laserponcture® action.
A huge field of investigation opens in front of us, given the results obtained and observed, the repetibility of renewable phenomena that will be observed by other crews within the context of more complete investigation. Complementary investigations could be done by the modern technical means we have such as MRI, thermodiography, positron cameras etc., without taking into account the interconnexions that can be described between the part of the body under the lesion and the brain, thus determining privileged areas helping post-lesion recoveries.
The relationship with Traditional Chinese Medicine was the object of study lead by Dr JAME-COLLET, Md, a little while before this conference. She was researching on the existence and concrete appearance of pibu with the laserponcture® technique (which is the object of a database recorded by us).
It seems that the collected information with the young paraplegics and quadriplegics during laser radiation enhances coherent lines, showing the route followed by a kind of energy expressible along the human body. This phenomenon of propagation is to link with the sensation of Qi. According to our conception, it seems to demonstrate that beyond a complete medullary section, the whole neo-acupunctural-network is upright. This does not mean that the acupunctural network is not upright at the moment of Beijin’s Symposium, 1979, for no research had been lead.
According to Dr JOHNSTON’s article, (Acupuncture and
Spinal Cord Dysfunction - In Paraplegia News - September 1998),
I quote :
Thus it seems there is a natural bridge between the Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Western medicine constituted by laserponcture®. It is only the starting-point of a scientific step that could end up to great discoveries on the extra biochemical functioning of human body with direct application on SCI individuals.
We have the intimate conviction that paralysis is not a fatality, and by getting together our classic and traditional knowledge, apart from the scientific accepted orthodoxy, we will have datas ready to create something new, not traumatizing, non invasive, with a lesser cost and without side-effects. All this will allow the young disable prisoners of their wheelchair, to recover all or a part of their autonomy. We all know that paralysis is the worst of any prisons since the bars are not around the individual but inside him. To allow this « prisoners » to escape from their « neurologic prison » is a duty that is incumbent on every one of us, whatever our training.
To conclude on a lighter note, we will say that if you felt a shiver along your spinal cord during this speech, you may have felt the phenomenon of the propagated sensation along the canals.
Thanks for your attention.
Albert Bohbot
Last update: 6 April 2009