@@ Objective On the basis of previous reports, in addition to activation observed in human brain, various types of sensory stimulation can evoke deactivation in brain areas. Acupuncture is a widely used approach of somatosensory stimulation in China and other Asian countries. Though there are accumulating published reports that apply neuroimaging methods to study central effects of acupuncture, deactivation evoked by acupoint stimulation has not been thoroughly analyzed. In this work, brain deactivations induced by stimulation at different acupoints in the lower leg were investigated.