material basis of the human meridian and the treatment research of disease in practical.
The meridian is the channel of qi, blood and body fluid itself running, has integral
prominent feature. Otherwise, it is important to study the whole meridian, acupuncture,
and their interaction.
Complex network is the general approach to study complex systems. It pays close
attention to the correlation between nodes and the overall effect role, has been
extensively applied in many fields. Especially, studying the metabolic system, nervous
system, the protein system, structure and function of biological systems research, make
great potential development of biological systems. The thesis makes breakthrough to
take complex network ideas and methods applied to study the meridian and made a
comprehensive analysis study to its network structure.
In this paper, moxibustion treatment data is from “Chinese medicine moxibustion”.
Using of complex network theory and method ,we constructed a disease point network,
Point-cooperative network, the weighted points cooperation network, the meridian
cooperative network, carried out a preliminary study on the these networks. Firstly,
though researching disease point network, a conclusion that different point is used to
treat different number disease is proved. Secondly, through the bipartite graph
projection, build point’s cooperation network. Though analysis the point’s cooperation
network, we found that this network is exponential networks, hierarchical network,
ultra-small-world networks, degree and degree negative match. That is to say, a
acupuncture which appear in the treatment of many diseases is incline to connect a
acupuncture which appear in little diseases; there is the central node whose the
clustering coefficient was lower, its role is to establish connections between different
modules. They are the intersection of meridians, or the air starting point; Either location
or functions in the human body, they have played role on raising flow efficiency of the
blood and body fluid. Furthermore, through research the weighted point’s cooperation
networks, we found that points differ greatly in cooperation times. The points number
which have only one time cooperation with other point account for half of total. Its
weight distribution has significant differences; Point Weight within a certain range is a
positive match. Finally, through studying the meridians cooperative network, we have
found that the different meridian shows quite different respective functions. There are
some relatively strong cooperate ability meridians. So that each meridian is greater co-
operation with these strong cooperate ability point.
Key words: Complex networks, Biology network, Meridian,
Acupuncture, Moxibustion