Article: Auriculotherapy

Auriculotherapy - not to be confused with auricular therapy using needles (ear acupuncture) - is a form of alternative medicine based on the idea that the ear is a microsystem, meaning that the entire body is represented on the auricle (or auricula, or pinna - the outer portion of the ear) in a similar fashion to reflexology (zone therapy) and iridology (iridodiagnosis), and that the entire body can be treated by stimulation of the surface of the ear exclusively. Scientists regard this as pseudoscience.

History

In the 1950s, Dr. Paul Nogier noticed that a local lay practitioner in Lyon, France was treating sciatica by cauterizing an area of the ear, which prompted him to investigate ear acupuncture and subsequently develop auriculotherapy as a treatment for chronic pain (and later, for substance abuse) [1]. However, auriculotherapy has never been shown to be an effective treatment for sciatica or any other form of chronic pain (or to have any beneficial effect above that of a placebo for substance abuse).

Compared to acupuncture

• auriculotherapy considers the ear to be a localized reflex system connected to the central nervous system (whereas ear acupuncture focuses on the acupuncture meridians) [2]

• auriculotherapy uses neither needles nor fixed stimulation points [3] [4]

Treatment (stimulation of the auricle) is usually by means of an electrical probe, or sometimes photobiomodulation (laser therapy).

Maps

Many widely differing auriculotherapy maps exist (examples: [5] [6]). Nogier first proposed a "somatotopic" map with the body appearing on the ear as an inverted fetus, with the head towards the lower lobule, the feet at the uppermost portion of the auricle, and the body in between; he subsequently produced three further "phase" diagrams providing additional and alternative sets of stimulation locations, in which the part or parts of the ear considered to represent a specific organ varies significantly depending on the "phase" of the ailment [7]. Some French system practitioners now use a more distorted representation of the body in the ear, more similar to the somatotopic representation on the cerebal cortex ^[1]. Chinese system diagrams place more emphasis on metaphorical names rather than anatomical locations.

Studies

• 1980: a study in the Journal Pain concluded "results ... support the hypothesis that there is a somatotopoic organization of the body represented upon the human auricle" [8]

• 1984: a controlled crossover study involving 36 patients suffering from chronic pain found that "...auriculotherapy is not an effective therapeutic procedure for chronic pain" [9]

• 1999: a study in the Journal Acupuncture in Medicine "...found no evidence to support the concept that the body is represented on the ear" [10]

Bibliography

1. ^ Rubach, Axel (2001). Principles of Ear Acupuncture. Thieme.