auriculotherapy augments biofeedback procedures by producing more direct

and immediate relief of myofascial pain and visceral discomfort.

Reflexologists: Tactile manipulation of reflex points on the ear can be combined

with pressure applied to tender regions of the feet and hands in order to relieve
specific body aches and internal organ disorders.

Psychotherapists: Psychiatrists and psychologists have employed

auriculotherapy for the reduction of anxiety, depression, insomnia, alcoholism,
and substance abuse

1.3 Historical overview of auriculotherapy Ancient China: All recorded systems

of classical acupuncture are attributed to the Chinese medical text, the Yellow
Emperor's classic of internal medicine (Veith 1972), compiled between 206 BCE
and 220 CE. In this text, all six yang meridians were said to be directly
connected to the auricle. Only the yang meridian channels travel to or from the
head, whereas the six yin meridians were said to connect to the ear indirectly
through their corresponding yang meridians. These ancient Chinese ear
acupuncture points, however, were not arranged in an anatomically organized
pattern. They were depicted on the ear as a scattered array of non-meridian
points, with no apparent logical order. Reactive ear acupoints that were tender
to palpation were referred to as yang alarm points.

s on the current understanding of auricular acupuncture as it is practiced

throughout the world. The Auriculotherapy Certification Institute (ACI) was
established in 1999 to certify practitioners who have achieved a high level of
mastery in this field.

4 Ear acupuncture developments in China Classical acupuncture was first

developed in China over 2000 years ago. Its historical roots have been
intriguingly documented in Unschuld"s.\/ As with primitive medical practice in
other parts of the world. Chinese shamans sought to ward off evil demons that
they perceived as the source of diseases: they enlisted ancestral spirits for
assistance in healing. The philosophies of Taoism (Daoism). Confucianism, and
Buddhism each influenced subsequent medical developments in China.
Mystical spiritual beliefs were combined with physical observations of clinically
effective treatments. Metaphorical references to light and dark, sun and moon,
fire and earth, metal and wood, all contributed to the Chinese understanding of
disease. The microcosm of mankind was related to the macrocosm of the
universe, with systematic correspondences between the visible and the
invisible worlds.

Human pain and pathology were attributed to disturbances in the flow of qi

(pronounced chee) along distinct energy channels called meridians. The
circulation of this vapor-like, invisible energy through 'holes' in the skin was
said to be facilitated by the insertion of needles into specific acupuncture
points. The Huang-di-nei-jing text attributed to the Yellow Emperor had referred
to 360 such holes as suitable for needling (Veith 1972). The emperor Huang Di
purportedly came to power in 2698 BCE, and the NeiJing was presented as a
dialogue between the emperor and his health minister. However, current
scholars suggest that the NeiJing was actually written much later, in the second
century BCE. The first recording of medical information by carvings on flat
stones, turtle shells, and bamboo slips did not occur until 400 BCE, and paper
was not invented in China until 150 CE. Acupuncture needles were first made
from bones and stones, and later from bronze metal. In 1027 CE, a full-sized
figure of a man was cast in bronze to guide medical practitioners. Over the
surface of this bronze statue was located a series of holes that corresponded to
the locations of acupuncture points. Oriental medicine was a complete
treatment system based upon the empirical findings that examined the clinical
efficacy of needling acupuncture points.

After he traced the image of the spine and the limbs, Nogier examined thoracic
organs, abdominal organs, and central nervous system projections onto the
ear. He needed a few years, however, to understand that the ear had a triple
innervation, and that each innervation supported the image of an
embryological derivative: endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm

Auriculotherapy tends to relieve pain more rapidly than body acupuncture. Ear
acupuncture needling is more often the treatment of choice for detoxification
from substance abuse than is body acupuncture. Ear acupuncture has been
found to quickly relieve postoperative pain, inflammation from joint sprains,
pain from bone fractures and the discomfort from gall stones. It readily can
reduce inflammations, nausea, itching and fever.
2.1 Micro-acupuncture systems The first theory to be considered is the concept
that auricular acupuncture is one of several microsystems throughout the
human body, a self-contained system within the whole system. In Oriental
thinking, there is a systematic correspondence of each part to the whole. The
microcosm of each person is interrelated to the macrocosm of the world that
surrounds them. Even in the West, medieval European philosophers described
the relationship between organs of the microcosm of man to the planetary
constellations in the macrocosm of the heavens. Modern medicine accepts that
the microorganism of each cell within the body is interrelated to the
macroorganism of the whole body. Just as each cell has a protective
membrane, flowing fluids, and a regulating center, so too does the whole body
have skin, blood, and the brain. For the whole of the organism to be in balance,
each smaller system within that organism must be in balance.

Remote reflex response: Every microsystem manifests neurological reflexes

that are connected with parts of the body remote from the anatomical location
of that microsystem. These reflexes are both diagnostic and therapeutic. They
maybe activated by massage, needle acupuncture, moxibustion, heat,
electrical stimulation, laser stimulation, magnets or any method used in macro-
acupuncture. When pressure is applied to a reactive microsystem point, a
pronounced facial grimace or a behavioral withdrawal reflex is evoked. Distinct
verbalizations of discomfort indicate that the reactive ear point is tender to
touch. The locations of these distant tender spots are not due to rrandom
chance, but are in fact related to a neurological reflex pattern that is centrally
mediated

Somatotopic inversion: In some microsystems, the reflex topology directly

corresponds to the upright position of the body, whereas in other microsystem
maps, the body is configured in an inverse order. In the auriculotherapy
microsystem, the reflex pattern resembles the inverted fetus in the womb. With
the hands pointed downwards and the toes stretched out, the hand and foot
reflexology systems are also inverted. The scalp microsystem is also
represented upside down, whereas the medial microsystems of the abdomen,
back, face, nose and lips are all oriented in an upright pattern. The tongue and
teeth microsystems are presented horizontally. Ipsilateral representation:
Microsystems tend to have bilateral effects, but they are usually more reactive
when the micro-acupoint and the area of body pathology are ipsilateral to each
other, on the same side of the body. Only the scalp microsystem, which
corresponds to the underlying somatosensory cerebral cortex, exhibits reactive
acupoints on the side of the scalp that is contralateral to the side of body
pathology. For the auricular microsystem, a condition on the right side of the
body would be represented on the right ear, whereas a problem on the left side
of the body would be reflected on the left ear. Actually, each region of the body
bilaterally projects to both the right and left ear. Auricular representation is
simply stronger on the ipsilateral ear than the contralateral ear.
Cutaneo-organic reflexes: Stimulating the skin at a microsystem acupoint
produces internal homeostatic changes that lead to the relief of pain and the
healing of the corresponding organ. This cutaneous stimulation triggers
nervous system messages to the spinal cord and brain, activating bioenergetic
changes, biochemical releases, and alterations of the electrical firing in
neuronal reflexes.
Interactions between systems: All of the micro-acupuncture system interact
with the macroacupuncture systems. Treatment by one system will produce
changes in the body's functional patterns as diagnosed by the other systems.
Treatment of the overall macrosystem affects the functioning of the
microsystems and treatment of any of the microsystems affects the functioning
of the macrosystem and of the other microsystems. For instance, stimulating
an ear point can reduce the intensity of discomfort of a tender trigger point on
an acupuncture channel, whereas an electrically reactive ear point will become
less conductive if the patient begins to heal following a body acupuncture
treatment.
Definicin
Una mapa somatotpico o somatotopa es la correspondencia punto por punto de un
rea del cuerpo con un rea especfica del sistema nervioso central. Es la forma, pues, de
cmo estn representadaa a nivel del cerebro las piernas, los brazos, el tronco, etc. Por
ejemplo, la parte alta del cerebro gestiona los miembros mientras que las partes laterales
captan ms la sensibilidad de la cara y de los labios. La somatotopa le permite al sistema
nervioso central evaluar la orientacin del cuerpo en el espacio y, de retorno, controlarlo
con precisin.

Consulta tambin
Relationship of auricular regions to nerve pathways: There are actually four
principal nerves, which innervate the human ear. Figure 2.26 shows the
distribution of different nerves to different auricular regions. Since the entire
auricle is covered with a thin skin layer containing extensively branching
nerves, all anatomical areas of the external ear are in part related to
ectodermal tissue. Somatic trigeminal nerve: The fifth cranial nerve is part of
the somatic nervous system pathway that processes sensations from the face
and controls some facial movements. The mandibular division of the trigeminal
nerve is distributed across the antihelix and the surrounding auricular areas of
the antitragus, scaphoid fossa, triangular fossa and helix. This auricular region
represents somatosensory nervous tissue associated with mesodermal organs.
Somatic facial neive: The seventh cranial nerve is an exclusively motor division
of the somatic nervous system, controlling most facial movements. It
predominately supplies the posterior regions of the auricle that represent
motor nerve control of mesodermal tissue. Autonomic vagus nerve: The tenth
cranial nerve is a branch of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic
nervous system. It processes sensations from visceral organs in the head, the
thorax, and the abdomen and it controls the smooth muscle activity of the
internal viscera. Vagus nerve fibers spread throughout the concha of the ear
and represent neurons associated with endodermal tissue.
Auricular representation of embryological tissue: All vertebrate organisms
begin as the union of a single egg and a single sperm, but this one cell soon
divides to become a multicellular organism as shown in Figure 2.27. This
developing ball of cells ultimately folds in on itself and differentiates into the
three different layers of embryological tissue. It is from these three basic types
of tissue that all other organs are formed. The organs derived from these
embryological layers are projected on to different regions of the auricle. Table
2.5 outlines these embryological divisions and the corresponding auricular
regions.
Endodermal tissue: The endoderm becomes the gastrointestinal digestive tract,
the respiratory system and abdominal organs such as the liver, pancreas,
urethra and bladder. This portion of the embryo also generates parts of the
endocrine system, including the thyroid gland, parathyroid gland, and thymus
gland. Deep embryological tissue is represented in the concha, the central
valley of the ear. Stimulating this area of the ear affects metabolic activities
and nutritive disorders of the internal organs that originate from the endoderm
layer of the embryo. Disturbances in internal organs create an obstacle to the
success of medical treatments, so these metabolic disorders must be corrected
before complete healing can occur.