The paper on Nature is much more in-depth, if you're interested. http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2562.html http://www.nature.com/neur

The paper on Nature is much more in-depth, if you're interested. http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2562.html http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.25... This is actually a somewhat big milestone for acupuncture. It's been historically accused of being snake oil because there was no known mechanism of action. Now there is. This part of the study is particularly promising: "Acupuncture combined with pharmacological suppression of AMP deaminase activity should theoretically increase the availability of adenosine and thereby enhance the clinical benefits of acupuncture. As a proof of principle, we found that mice treated with a Food and Drug Administration approved deaminase inhibitor, deoxycoformycin, exhibited more potent increases in adenosine and benefitted from a longer-lasting suppression of chronic pain following acupuncture."