Background: Acupuncture is widely used in post-stroke rehabilitation, and clinical practice often combines conventional needling with Juxi, a contralateral acupuncture technique. However, the acute cortical effects of these approaches lack objective neuroimaging validation. Methods: Eighteen patients with post-stroke hemiparesis (57.89 ± 13.81 y; 15 males, 3 females) participated in a single-session, within-subject study. Each received 2 protocols in counterbalanced order: conventional acupuncture on the affected side and Juxi-combined acupuncture, adding needling on the healthy side. A 63-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy system measured cortical responses during rest and each condition. Two activation indices were defined as the ratio of wavelet amplitude (WA) during acupuncture to WA during rest: ∆HC (conventional) and ∆HJ (Juxi-combined). Activation was assessed by paired t tests with FDR correction ( q <0.05). Results: Conventional acupuncture elicited significant activation only in the ipsilesional prefrontal cortex ( t =3.46, q =0.04). Juxi-combined acupuncture activated 10 regions, including contralesional motor, premotor, supplementary motor, and bilateral occipital cortices (all q <0.05). Direct comparison revealed no significant differences between ∆HC and ∆HJ after FDR correction. However, ∆HJ in the ipsilesional prefrontal cortex showed a nominally significant positive association with Fugl-Meyer Assessment scores (ρ=0.55, uncorrected P =0.018), which did not survive FDR correction for multiple comparisons; ∆HC showed no significant correlations. Conclusions: The 2 protocols engaged distinct spatial activation patterns, but their hemodynamic response magnitudes did not differ significantly. An uncorrected positive correlation between ∆HJ and motor function hints at a potential link between Juxi-combined acupuncture and clinically relevant networks, though this finding requires confirmation in larger, confirmatory trials. Clinical trial registration number: ITMCTR2026000390. URL: https://itmctr.ccebtcm.org.cn
Zhang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.