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Hello everyone. Thank you very much for joining us. My name is Matt Callison and with me is Dr. Brian Lau we’re with the Sports Medicine Acupuncture Certification program. We’re lucky enough to be able to have this, this sports podcast with the American Acupuncture Council. So we want to give a big shout out to the American Acupuncture Council. Thank you very much. We have a great opportunity today that we can invite a number of top speakers in the sports acupuncture field. And today we have Dr. Michael Corradino, he’s the creator and founder of neuropuncture. It’s the only complete neuroscience acupuncture system that we have here in the United States. He has been clinically practicing acupuncture for 25 years has been traveling the world, teaching a system and researching neuroscience acupuncture for the past 15 years. He’s been involved in groundbreaking electrical acupuncture research, and as a published author in this field.

And from what we understand, he’s actually working on his third book. Michael. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Welcome, Michael. Thank you guys so much. It’s a real incredible honor. Thank you. Well, um, should we just jump right into the first topic? Sure, sure. So what we discussed was let’s, let’s get into a talk a conversation about neurophysiological mechanism of acupuncture. Why don’t you go ahead and take it, Michael. All right. So I think on this particular topic, I think it’s important to kind of plant the little, little flag right here of acknowledging that the language of our medicine, um, being, you know, from 2,500 years ago was our ancient predecessors and founders of our medicine, observing physiological phenomenon and putting it in the language and terms that they had at that date. And that, um, the, unfortunately I believe the very strong, unfortunate, uh, mistranslations of energy and meridians.

And I know that a lot of our professional professions liked to use that was who was, was really, you know, mistranslated by Soulié de Morant, who was not a physician. I think that’s very clear to make that point because in my travels to China, uh, you know, there’s strong documentation of physicians from Germany, America, and France that traveled to China in the 16 hundreds in the physicians, when they looked at the classics, understanding anatomy, physiology, pathology clearly really translated jingluo, and mai and qi more as breath as qi and pathways and channels and networks and actually points they translate as neurovascular nodes. So when you put the physician hat on as a, as a physician, I think that the neurophysiology understanding of acupuncture was kind of side routed because the energetic model, but today using 20th and 21st century medical sciences, we can absolutely understand the physiology of acupuncture. I think a lot of the groundbreaking research with functional MRIs clearly denotes that we are modulating the nervous system. We can target specific regions of the brain specific receptors with electrical frequencies and different hand techniques, which is measured by frequencies. And we transmit signals along, uh, the neuropathways that then communicate with the entire body because, you know, brain being the CPU, um, you know, uh, I teach five main neurophysiological mechanisms and I think they really clearly do explain all of acupuncture’s clinical phenomenon today. Awesome. Awesome.

Alright, we’ll set. Brian, do you have anything to add? Yeah, well, you know, and, and, um, the work we do in sports medicine, acupuncture, I think, uh, you know, Michael, you probably look much more from the neurological aspect than we do though. Of course, we do take a lot of, um, consideration of the neurology jiaji points, and we’ll get into those in a little bit, uh, of course, motor points, we’ll get into those in a little bit, but one of the influences of, of mine, um, in the last several years and, uh, and I think speak for Matt, maybe he’ll agree with this is some of the work, uh, from, uh, the, the, um, physio from Italy, Luigi Stecco, and he has a very, um, fascial, you know, kind of, um, myofascial, uh, mechanism, but also, you know, his, his work is called myofascial techniques or something like that, myofascial therapy, but he, uh, initial terminology they use was neuromyofascial, because you know, he’s looking at how the fascia

Communicates mechanical pull, um, and helps, uh, um,

Through that mechanical pull helps inform proprioceptors in that area. Uh, you know, that there’s, it’s really a mechanical stimulation that, that informs those proprioceptors, and then that

helps in terms of coordinated movement, helps certain muscle groups work together,

Uh, to be able to fire and then the antagonist to be able to relax. And there’s a communication network that is some degree is the brain, but it’s really,

His view is a little bit of the mechanical,

Uh, communication that is really driving that stimulation. It’s a little bit more of the fascial aspect. I think you’re a little bit more in the neurology aspect. I don’t know if the two necessarily are exclusive, but it’s an interesting, interesting perspective.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s a good point. Um, and as we know, it’s that there’s no real segregation with the human body, right? I mean, you’ve gets all interconnected. So with the nerves, I think we can probably say that those nerves are a big part of the channels, but that’s not the only part of the channels. Right? So with the neural stimulation that is going to be affecting every cell in the body, no matter where you end up putting the points, there’s always going to end up being a change. So that’s the fantastic thing about neurophysiological aspect. So I mean, adding the different frequencies and the different waves onto the needle itself is going to be obtaining a number of different rewards or penalties sometimes. Exactly. Unfortunately, you know, you can still treat the excess and the deficiencies using electric stimulation. And so it’s, it’s, it’s fantastic.

I love this topic. It’s a good one, Michael, back to you. Um, I would like to definitely, I like what Brian was saying. I don’t think there are not connected as Matt just clearly stated the fascia nervous system, because there’s been some real strong research that supports the fascial being indicated with acupuncture, but the fascia won’t be able to transmit some of those signals without neural innervation. So I think there is an absolute, you know, connection there and that, uh, again, you know, in my, uh, my research, I think that the neurophysiology really just really powerfully, powerfully empowers the practitioner when they understand that. Yeah, absolutely. On all levels, right? Your primary channel channels, your sinew channels, your luo channels, it’s all being affected. Absolutely. This is good. This is actually a good segue into points unless Brian, that you wanted something that

Actually I was curious about, um, you know, when you’re through your perspective in your work, when you’re needling points, especially, you know, the in acupuncture, we have a lot of primacy of the, the transporting points and xi-cleft and luo-connecting points and the points below the elbow and below the knee, when you’re working with those points, are you then thinking of what nerves being stimulated is that sort of your, your first sort of go to, in terms of the effect you’re trying to achieve

100% Brian that’s exactly. Then, you know, I, you know, the classics actually state that, right? That, that, that the qi and the pathways get closer to the surface from the elbows in those joints below. And that shows actually that we have more clear access to those nerves. We can use an example using luo and source points, like a LU7 LI4 both on the radial nerve, right BL58 and KID3, you got the tibial and sural bifurcations of the sciatic and peroneal nerve. So I think they do lie and they do definitely communicate. They modulate each other. Um, when we’re looking at points, um, again, I look at, you know, neurovascular nodes, NIH came out with this wonderful study where they used an invisible marker and they had a, I think we’ve got like 10 practitioners mark and locate a point, then needle it, and then stimulate and took a function MRI of it, and what they found out was that none of the practitioners found the point the same way or the same location. So that’s not a point, right? It’s more of a unit or region, but there is differences from on the same nerve, different regions. Right. And that’s been confirmed as well, like P6 or P5. They actually different regions that affects on the brain. So there could be a nerve, but the, your locations, but they’re not points. Yeah, that’s it.

I have a very, um, been very curious about that. Is there something

Unique about the various,

You know, stream points are jing-river points. Is there something unique about those points neurologically, like, do some of them tend to

Correlate with branches where the nerve branches, or is it really just point by point? Obviously there’s something unique in terms of how they affect physiology. Right. Is there something anatomically that’s, that’s something that you’ve observed that’s unique about them? LI4 to LU 7 has that. Oh, I’m sorry for interrupting. Was that question for Michael? I’m sorry, go ahead buddy. Oh, it’s just whoever. Yeah, no, Matt, I think you’ll be able to probably answer this better. You both can do this, but check this out. Okay. So we know the daqi sensations has about seven main class main classical sensations. You guys are all familiar with spinal anatomy of the spinothalamic tract, right. And there’s three of them, the anterior, posterior, and lateral. There’s also the spinocerebellar tract that brings up transmissions from the exterior. And how can we affect those spinocerebellar tracts for balance and proprioception is through the points on the wrist or the river points, because those tend to actually target more of the spinocerebellar tracts. So Brian, to your answer, I think yes, there can be these points that do maybe affect certain spinal tracts different than other ones. And that’s based on the receptors you’re stimulating and where they’re located. Yeah. That’s really interesting. Brian. I think what I understood you say, Brian is their actual physical conduit going from one nerve to the next, like for example, xi-cleft, no, I’m sorry, Like a source and luo combination. Is that where you’re talking about Brian?

I guess I was thinking, you know, I’ll, I’ll use, uh, jing well points. I would assume jing well points being where they are, that they’re at the termination

of various cutaneous nerves.

And that would seem like a pretty consistent of how that affects, um, in terms of, uh, communication back into the central nervous system

is kind of what Michael was speaking at. But I guess what I’m wondering is if the jing well points are at termination of, of certain, um, cutaneous nerve pathways,

Other nerves, do you tend to see a correlation that there may be at a bifurcation of the nerve? Or is that really not… Is that really more of a point by point. Well, I do know that perfect example again, right. Using the luo and source of large intestine four and lung seven, you know, that’s great for upper respiratory things. We know that’s the radial nerve goes into the brachial plexus, the cervical eight nervous part of the brachial plexus and those nerves do affect the lungs. So you do see, I think those correlations just like bladder 58, kidney 3 surreal tibial, or a peroneal tibial running up into the low back, helping out with low back pain and then any visceral muscular reflexes, which I’m sure we’ll go over with the huatuojiaji points. I see some correlations to that. We have a video on YouTube channel that shows the interdigital nerve, that branches off of the radial nerve and it goes right in toward LI4.

So we saw that. Yeah, it’s is so much fun. We saw that. So we saw that connection, but then in our cadaver dissections, we looked at other sources of luo anatomical areas to see if there was a branch like that. And we couldn’t quite find it. And this is where we hypothesize that is probably more of a going from nerve to that fascial plane that connects to that point. And then you have that mechanical aspect. I don’t know, but you know, it’s just kids, we’re just loving what we’re doing. So we’ll check out the next cadaver, see what we can find. Absolutely. I mean, when I was there for your cadaver, I’ll bring it up. We get to the motor points, but you guys just do phenomenal cadaver work and dissection work, and I’m really impressed. And I know that we’ll talk about it well that, you know, we’ll, we’ll talk about when we get to the other stuff.

Definitely pleasure to hang out with, do you as well that’s for sure. Thank you. Should we get into the motor points? Sure. All right. Okay. Um, well, something that I’ve been researching for a long time is the, the neurophysiological location of the motor point located on the skin and then going deeper to see where that motor entry point actually is. So there’s different names for the motor point. Some people call it a neuro muscular junction, which can be a motor point. That is from what I know of as being an internal motor point. The research that I’ve been working on would be where the actual motor nerve enters into the muscle itself. Some people call that the neuromuscular junction. That’s not my understanding of it. That would actually be the motor entry point. Then the nerve would then branch off and go into proximal, neuromuscular junctions, and then still branch travel along into distal intramuscular, junctions, or muscular junctions.

So yeah, I mean, this is something, these, these points become Ashi points that have been treated for thousands and thousands of years. And, um, very, very useful as we know, to be able to treat these and mixing these with acupuncture points, acupuncture points, many of them are acupuncture points. Exactly. And also many of them are our notable Ashi points. So by treating these in a, in a, in a system we’ve seen that it can be able to relax the myofascial systems and change posture and such. Now what’s something that we haven’t actually done, which in the seminars that we have, Michael. in SMAC, but people ask questions about, do you apply electric stim to certain things. I do use electric stim on some, but only probably about 10%. This is why I refer my class to you, to your program. And that’s what I refer the neuromuscular section of mine to you, Matt.

I swear to God, I tell all my practitioners. You want to really dive into this, go to the master, go to Matt, trust me. Well, they both compliment each other, you know, each other very well. Absolutely. Hey, if I can add some to that, you know, when we were dissecting and I was doing that when we were working together, man, you know, I have a picture of it, of the dissection of that neuromuscular junction that you were able to dissect right down to that junction. So we were able to do that with what scalpels, our hands and our eyes. So going back again, knowledge, knowledge, and I don’t think that it would behoove. I think it would behoove us to not think that maybe our ancestors had some of that understanding as well. Yes. They definitely SAW those wonderful nerves, activating the muscles and put some of this together. You know, it might have got lost in translation a little bit, but man, Matt, you impressed me so much when you went right down and you nailed it, man. I mean, that was beautiful. It was really incredible. I got lucky. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Like that’s a common misconception about dissection. You know what I mean? The weights of the organs are in the classics. There’s a lot of anatomical description in there and how much of how much information is lost too, and how much of the information didn’t carry forward and books that maybe got lost along the way. So I think it’s a, it’s obvious that there was dissection going on an exploration of anatomy and how well that, how, how deep that understanding was, it’s hard to say, but it seems like it’s pretty, pretty solid.

Yeah, absolutely. So when they were doing the dissections, like Huatuo, my hero. Can you see him over my shoulder here? My inspiration, my leader, there was ever a person that I would like to be able to have met, it would have been Huatuo, right. I would have liked to have sat down with tea with Huatuo and Galen from the Roman empire, that we’re at the same time, 188 AD. Galen knew the afferent and effernet nerves, Huatuo knew the spinal segments, man let’s have tea or maybe Italian wine with them. Do you think they would have gotten along. I don’t know. Yeah. Right. Two empires. Right? Yeah. Funny, funny. Yeah. Well, what you’re saying, Michael, when they were doing dissection centuries ago and they saw it, we call it nerves, they were calling it channels and collaterals and the main nerves and the tributaries branch off from that and innervate the body. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So Michael, you want to, you want to lead off with Huatuo points and why you love them so much.

Ooh, gosh. These are, you know, when we get through this section, neuro puncture, I, when I first came across this, I, you know, it just, I just dropped the microphone. I was like, are you kidding me? Like this was just such a beautiful explanation of our back shoe points and how powerful they are. And in short, the huatuojiaji points created by Huatuo discovered by him. It’s not a coincidence that they line up viscerally with the motor or the muscular visceral reflex that’s in the spinal segment. So when you needle into the muscle and there’s also a cutaneous visceral reflex, you’re, you’re affecting these inner motor neurons in the spinal cord and you can absolutely affect this rule change and that’s been proven and it is just amazing. And the only thing that we do a little differently is we now know through, again, the great anatomy biomedicine.

We know now that there’s not just one segment per organ, right. They might have three or four and we can really maximize that effect on the visceral function by having those deeper understanding. But man, they are just, it’s incredible what he did. That’s right. That’s why I always joke when you see images of him, his forehead is so big because his brains are so hard, right? Yeah. Way ahead of his time. Brian, is there anything that you want to add to the huatuojiaji points? Well, you know, they’re just the reflex and that segmental relationship between, uh, you know, I think most acupuncturists know this, but maybe not all. Cause it’s, it’s kinda spotty, the anatomy understanding that’s taught at school, but you know, it’s the same through the sympathetic division of the nervous system, the same branch that goes out and innervates the liver or innervates, depending on which segments you’re at, innervates the various viscera to give sympathetic nervous system information to regulate those organs at that same segmental relationship are the ones that send that posterior dorsal rami, the medial branch of it into the huatuo, and then the lateral branches into the, uh, internal and external back shu line.

So, I mean, it’s really a segmental relationship between those, those viscera, those organs, the muscles and the skin of the back. And then, uh, in that coming up through the lamina for the huatuos and then the outer ones for the, uh, the back shu points. And then of course, you know, wrapping around that same pathway and then coming into the innervating the front mu points. It’s very, it’s it’s neurology. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s like under, so you can understand it so much better when you can see that neurology, when you can open up Netter and look at those cross sections and see the relationship between those nerves and how they would, uh, sort of have an influence on those various points front mu, back shu points. hutuojiaji points. Yeah. I mean, yin yang therapy, the classical needle technique utilizes that.

It was Yin Yng therapy was front mu and back shu. So front mu point and the back shoot point, wow. By adding the Huatuojiaji points, you can see because it is the same nerve pathway. It’ll just emphasize that needle technique. It’s useful to see a cross section, I think like in thoracic spine to be able to see how the dorsal primary rami goes up to the huatuojiaji, goes to the inner bladder line, goes to the outer bladder line and the anterior Rami of that spinal nerve goes to the sympathetic ganglion, which as we were discussing stimulates the organs. Right. So, and this has all been proven, then that same nerve goes all the way around to the front mu point, right? So you can see if there’s going to be pathology, it will be facilitated. Therefore, all of those points along that spinal segment can be very, very tender.

If we could be able to take ourselves in a small little car and actually drive from the dorsal primary rami, you can actually make it to the anterior rami, so hello to the sympathetic ganglion, make a u-turn and go all the way back that intercostal nerve and say hello to the front mu point. Yeah, absolutely. That’s amazing. And there’s also, you know, I mean, Ren 12, right, having such a great effect on digestion. If you were a needle that properly, I believe you’re actually splitting both dermatomes of seven and eight. So you’re getting liver spleen, gallbladder, stomach, pancreas, just by Ren 12. But I think that’s why that front mu is such a great point for the middle jiao, right. And when you line that up with dermatomes and our front mu points, it really does show those connections that were found, again, you know, a hundred AD, which is just incredible. Michael, I have a question for you, how I’m sorry, Brian, go for it, buddy.

So, um, uh, at one point I think there was some, some questions on this about needling Huatuo points and why I particularly like, the back shu points are great, but the Huatuo points being that they’re so protected by the laminae, um, you know, even over the thoracic region, you can, you can needle them as long as you understand, and you can palpate correctly. And you know, maybe with the exception with somebody who has really severe

Scoliosis and you might lose sight of those angles, but if somebody’s

Spine and you have good palpation

And it’s, they’re very safe to needle, cause you can go perpendicular and that’s

protect by the laminate as long as you’re at that 0.5 cun. Um, you know, I know some people do angle. I don’t know Michael, how you do it. Some people angle perpendicular is how we teach it too, though. I think you get a good result, needling it angled, too. But the point is that the points are very protected and you don’t have to be

Afraid of depth. Again, assuming you have the palpation and you were taught properly how to needle it. Brian, go ahead and plug the YouTube video that we have with that. Oh yeah, yeah,

Yeah. We have a, um, so we did a dissection, um, and we cut out. It is in the thoracic region. What was it about T7.

We’ve done it five or six times, but the video that’s that’s on YouTube I think is that T8 or T7Yeah. So it’s in that

thoracic region and we dissected a triangle from like, if this is a spine, a triangle out, I’m covering like three range of three levels, something like T7, T8, T9. And then we cut the skin away and then the subcutaneous tissue and then the first, you know, the lower traps, first muscle layer and piece by piece so that you can fold, you know, like a book, you can, you can fold the skin back, you can fold the subcutaneous tissue back. You can fold the first muscle layer, a second muscle layer all the way to the deep paraspinals and eventually seeing the lamina. And then you can see where the needle goes, you know, putting the needle in and then folding those layers back and seeing the target tissue. Awesome. Yeah. Sports, medicine, acupuncture, YouTube sports medicine acupuncture, YouTube watch Huatuojiaji video. It was a bit of work to do the dissection.

Remember guys, when we were, when we were working together, we did, I did the upper back like that and we pulled the skin, Yeah, that’s right, the trap, the rhomboid, and then the paraspinals. We put the needle, I think we use the 40 or 50, you know, length needle and we’re just tapping and there was, there was room. So you can really show that depending on the patient. But that was, that was so excellent. I loved that. I think our acupuncture field would, would, would take off if we add more dissection as part of the standard training, I know it’s expensive and that’s really where the trick comes in. That’s where we’re going, right, Ggentlemen? We’re trying to be able to do in both of our programs is to educate the acupuncture field with the cadaver dissection is that we do in your program.

The neuropuncture, and in our program, sports medicine acupuncture. So it’s great. And also other ones that we have, Matt, I did have something that I thought you might want to add something to. And that is, um, and I know we don’t have a ton of time left, but I don’t think it will take long, this idea with the Huatuojiaji points and, uh, the, um, affecting the muscle therefore affecting the neurology, affecting the skin, but also the facet joints, and I know that’s a big part of the sports medicine acupuncture program in terms of the first module. If you wanted to add anything to that. Um, the location of it and then different needle techniques at different target tissue. Okay. So if we’re thinking about the movement of the facet, so, you know, for fixations, vertebral fixations. so you’re wanting me to talk about vertebral fixations and needling the facets?

Is that what you’re saying? No, not necessarily needling the facet, but for vertebral fixations and movement as a facets and how that relates to the neurological aspect, too. I’m not following you. I’m sure you’re trying to dig something out of me from a conversation that we had, sorry for being so dumb. So why don’t you take it over and all, you know what you’re talking about? In Sports Medicine Acupuncture, we also look at the, um, the movement of the vertebral facets. It’s in the first module. And we assess when, when the facets, when the joints are moving, when the spinal joints are moving or not moving and how that, um, you know, we a whole protocol, I don’t know if we have time to go in into the protocol now, but, um, that can relate when we’re working in vertebral fixations of the neck, it can relate to injuries in the arm, low back. It can relate to injuries of the lower extremities, but, but you know, a lot of times practitioners are also working with, um, visceral problems and they’re doing various mobilizations in combination with

huatuojiaji point needling, in combination with distal points,

In combination with the whole thing, they’re also going in and doing tuina mobilization to return mobility to those facets, which has a really big impact on digestive problems and really a lot of different things.
Yeah. I would say that’s probably one of the biggest successes that we’re having with that. Thank you for dumbing that down. Now I can join you. I didn’t ask it really well, I guess. Now that I understand that I’ll say we know we do very similar work in neuropuncture, as well. I’ve been taught traditional Chinese bone setting, and I teach that to my certified members. And that’s exactly a great combination with huatuojiaji for visceral or peripheral injuries due to those nerves. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s a great combo. Fixated vertebrae or subluxed vertebrae are obstructions in the channel particularly the du mai. And so when you got obstructions in that du mai, it’s going to offset the rest of the channels. Absolutely. So getting that vertebrae back into place, however you do it, a forceful manipulation or mobilizations, movement therapy, all that it’s going to be important. I mean, that’s how the Chinese do it, right? So they would go from acupuncture to taiji, qigong exercises, their physical therapy. Yup. Yeah. Hey, you guys, we’re already at 1o:28. Anything else that you want to say real quick before we give our, thanks again, say goodbye.

I would just say that if our practitioners and our listeners, um, open their hearts and their minds to what we’re saying and do a little best investigating and check us out, they’re going to really have a deeper understanding, learn a language to communicate and really get, I think quite, you know, you know, just amazing clinical outcomes. And that is just, that’s the bottom line. And we started with neurophysiology of acupuncture and everything we just said, and the discussion we had just eliminate all that, even bring it in historical relevance. I think that’s just cements it back in and galvanizes it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I second the motion with that, for those people that are interested in what we were discussing and it really excites you. Yeah. Please check out both programs and just see which one’s the best fit or both of them. Absolutely. Because Michael’s a great guy.

As you can see super knowledgeable, he’s a hell of a practitioner and his protocols work. So that’s something that you want and you need to be able to have that in your, in your main focus of practice and also different things. Do you put in your back your back pocket? So when you’re actually practicing yourself, you remember when Michael taught you and that can get you out of a lot of problems are very, uh, are very treatment or assessment or treatment oriented. Absolutely. I think we have to do our little goodbyes now because it’s 10 29. So I’m Matt Callison. I’m the president of the sports medicine acupuncture certification program. My colleague and dear friend, Brian Lau, go ahead, Brian. Okay. I’m a faculty of sports medicine acupuncture certification, and a practitioner in Florida, along with Michael, though we’re in different cities and thank you very much, Michael Corradino. And I really appreciate you. Yeah, it was really, really nice. We want to thank you. Thank the American acupuncture council again for having us next week. Stay tuned for Virginia Doran. She’s going to be with us in the American acupuncture council. So that’d be something to check out. Um, again, you guys thank you very much. It was a lot of fun. It’s fun. You guys are awesome. I appreciate it. Very honorable. OK, take care. Bye. Thanks guys.