This study will help the investigators to learn whether acupuncture, which is a non-opioid alternative pain management approach, can help to manage pain in patients with sickle cell disease and the underlying mechanisms. Acupuncture involves inserting very fine needles through the skin at specific points on the body to different depths. Acupuncture may help relieve pain and it is used for a wide range of pain conditions. Participation in this study will include 14 study visits over around 6-8 weeks and 12 months follow-up visits. This is a randomized study, which means subjects are randomly assigned to one of two groups. During the study visits: 1) Subjects will be randomized to 10 sessions with either traditional acupuncture (very fine acupuncture needles will be inserted into the skin) or laser acupuncture without needles (a laser acupuncture device will be used and there will be no physical contact between the device and subject's skin) and each session will last for 30 minutes, 2) Subjects will answer questions about their personal and health related information for assessing health condition during the in-person and follow-up study visits, 3) Investigators will perform quantitative sensory testing (QST) before and after the acupuncture sessions on the surface of selected testing areas in subjects to assess the somatosensory functionality, 4) Investigators will record brain signals before and after acupuncture sessions using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-an imaging tool to analyze brain structural and functional features and metabolites profile, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-an imaging tool to examine the brin hemodynamic activity, and electroencephalography (EEG) -an imaging tool used to detect the brain electrical activity, 5) Subjects will receive evoked pain stimuli on the left gastrocnemius muscle during MRI, fNIRS and EEG, 6) Female subjects will take a urine pregnancy test during the screening visit as well as before each behavioral and MRI visit, 7) Investigators will collect an inner eyelid image collection for examining the hemoglobin level and 8) subjects will have two blood draws before and after the entire acupuncture sessions for regular blood examination and circulating biomarkers' analyses.
The proposed research is to determine the clinical efficacy and neurobiological mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia in patients with sickle cell disease.