Laserpuncture is an alternative treatment to improve the after-effects of a spinal cord injury (SCI) with a perspective to recover motor, sensitive and visceral functions (bladder, bowels, etc.).

This technique is split up into two principles:

A – The device – Technical principle:
It is a specific infrared laser based on specific requirements and manufactured by the ENSAM (National Engineering School of Arts and Crafts) and funded by the ANVAR (National Agency for the Development of Research). This laser has already been the object of evaluations during the experimental protocol at the Regional Universitary Hospital Center (CHRU) of Jules COURMONT in Lyon-Sud, service of Professor Maurice BOUVIER. No side-effect were observed on more than 700 patients treated with laser according to a double-blind protocol versus placebo.

B – The network – Fundamental principle:
During our first research, we wondered if the classic acupunctural network was open or closed. Reading the old acupuncture Chinese texts, we acquired the conviction that the classic acupunctural network represented only a tiny part of the whole acupunctural network. Thus, according to our own criteria we established a neo-cartography of points that can be activated with the laser.

C - The phenomenon of the propagated sensation along the canals:
To show the interaction between laser and the neo-cartography we elaborated, we had to observe a coherent phenomenon, that can be repeated and described on every case studied. We found it by using the phenomenon of the propagated sensation along the canals (PSC). This PSC would have been at the origin of acupuncture. It corresponds to 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 specifically. The PSC follows the route of meridians traditionally described in 80 % of the cases. Variations were observed:

• There is no sudden change in the route followed

• Communications can be observed between the canals and the transfer from one to another.

The sensation of flowing has a width of 1 to 2 cm at the limbs level and 10 cm or so at the trunk level. The speed of this sensation can vary, generally from a couple of centimetres to 20 centimetres per second. This propagation can be done in both ways from the stimulated point. The speed is increased by local warmness and decreased by coldness. In complete transections of the spinal cord, it disappears. This PSC is unquestionably linked to the nervous system. But the peripheral nervous system is not the only one involved. For some, the cortex would be the most important level, a reproduction of the canalar network that must exist in the neuronal cortical network, in the same way that the cortical representation exists in the 4 area (W. Penfiel and Rasmusen, it would be interesting to identify the area where the network graph is in the cortical.)

The coherent and repeated descriptions by patients of different levels of injury, who do not always speak French lead us to conclude that the laser entered in resonance with the network used. It allowed the spinal cord injured individuals to communicate precisely with the part of their body under the injury.

Added to this ability of identifying the different parts of the body under the injury, a phenomenon of skin polarization appears as soon as the laser is applied on a point. It appears under the shape of a skin rubefaction with a dermography – “the white line” – when a line is slightly drawn on the skin with the nail.

We evoked the release of a sub-cutaneous generalized neurotransmitter, the histamin (?), which has been revealed by the associated action of the laser and network. The cutaneous surface has an important role to play because it is the mediator between the laser emission and the underlying canalar network located in the hypodermic area. The crossing of information between the canalar network and the brain is done through the dermatomes which are the projection of spinal cord segments on the cutaneous surface.

Moreover, the descriptions of the phenomena felt and described by paraplegic and quadriplegic when the laser is on, whether it be above or under the injury, lead us to ponder on the conductive role of the skin nervous impulse by a way different that the neuronal electro-chemical one, and also ponder on a spreading in any sense of the nervous impulse and not only according to the axis dendrite – axon – synapse. We also considered a neuro-endocrinous stimulation at a particle level during the laser activation on the network and the treated points. But only an experimental protocol lead according to scientific rules recognized by the international scientific community will allow to confirm or invalidate all these observations.

Albert Bohbot

Last update: 16 Oct. 2008