Effect and cerebral mechanism of acupuncture treatment for functional constipation: study protocol for a randomized controlled clinical trial

Acupuncture is effective in functional constipation (FC) treatment, but the central mechanism has not been well investigated. This trial will combine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) to investigate the potential central mechanism of acupuncture treatment for FC. This is a multimodal neuroimaging randomized controlled trial. In total, 140 FC patients will be randomly...