A German–Chinese team used functional magnetic resonance imaging in 15 healthy subjects to investigate cortical activation during stimulation of two real acupoints (LR 3 and GB 40) and one sham point, needled in a random and, for the subjects, blinded order employing rotating and non-rotating methods. Compared to the non-rotating stimulation method, during rotating stimulation of the real acupoints an increase in activation was observed in both secondary somatosensory cortical areas, frontal areas, the right side of the thalamus and the left side of the cerebellum; no such effects of the needling technique were seen while stimulating the sham point.