SI-07 (Zhi Zheng) Branch to the Correct

What does SI-07 Zhi Zheng do?

Zhi Zheng SI-07 is the Luo-Connecting point of the Small Intestine Channel of Hand Tai Yang, and its recorded work runs in two directions at once: outward, clearing heat and releasing the exterior in a Tai Yang pattern, and inward, calming the spirit through the connecting vessel that crosses to the Heart. That second direction is what makes this small forearm point more interesting than its short indication list suggests — it is the Small Intestine's route to its paired yin organ.

• Clears heat and releases the exterior — the primary recorded action, and the basis of its use in febrile disease and in the headache, neck rigidity and aversion to cold of a Tai Yang presentation. The Small Intestine channel is one of the two Tai Yang channels, and Tai Yang is the classical outermost layer.
• Calms the spirit — the recorded action that comes through the connecting vessel to the Heart, and the reason a Small Intestine point carries indications for mania, agitation, anxiety and fright. Without the Luo classification this indication would make no sense on this channel; with it, it is the expected result.
• Activates the channel and alleviates pain — the channel action, for pain and stiffness of the neck, the elbow and the arm along the course of the channel.
• Benefits the finger joints — the specific distal recorded action, for spasm, contracture and pain of the fingers, which the Small Intestine channel reaches at the little finger.
• Connects with the Heart channel — the Luo action proper, and the formal basis of everything above that is not simply local.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, Luo-Connecting classification, existing action record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 238); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 168); Ling Shu (Spiritual Pivot), Chapter 10, on the connecting vessels; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is SI-07 Zhi Zheng used for?

Zhi Zheng SI-07 is used for neck stiffness and headache with fever, for pain and spasm of the elbow and fingers, and for agitated mental states. The indications below are those carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references together with those set out in the standard reference literature. They describe traditional use, not proven treatment.

• Rigidity and pain of the neck; inability to turn the head
• Headache
• Dizziness
• Febrile disease with aversion to cold and absence of sweating
• Spasmodic pain and contracture of the elbow
• Pain, spasm and weakness of the fingers
• Pain along the outer side of the arm
• Mania and manic-depressive states
• Agitation, fright and anxiety
• Warts and skin eruptions along the channel — a classical indication of this point

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 238); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 168).

Where is SI-07 Zhi Zheng, and how is it used in practice?

Zhi Zheng lies on the little-finger side of the back of the forearm, five cun above the wrist on the line joining Yang Gu SI-05 at the wrist to Xiao Hai SI-08 at the elbow. Deadman & Al-Khafaji place it more precisely in the groove between the front edge of the ulna and the muscle belly of flexor carpi ulnaris, which is the practical way to find it: run a fingertip along the ulnar shaft and drop into the gully beside it. It is roughly a third of the way up the forearm.

Which points is SI-07 combined with?

• With Shen Men HT-07 — the Yuan-Luo combination, and the pairing that matters most at this point. Each Connecting point is classically paired with the Yuan-Source point of its partner channel; SI-07 is the Small Intestine's Connecting point, and HT-07 is the Heart's Source point, so the pair is used when the Heart is the primarily affected channel and the Small Intestine is drawn in behind it. This is also the pairing that has actually been tested in animal work — see the research section, where HT-07 with SI-07 outperformed HT-07 alone.
• With Wan Gu SI-04 — the Small Intestine's own Yuan-Source point at the wrist. Source-and-Connecting on the same channel keeps the treatment within one channel rather than crossing the pair.
• With Hou Xi SI-03 and Tian Zhu BL-10 — for a stiff, painful neck; SI-03 is the Confluent point of the Governing Vessel and the standard distal point for the nape, with BL-10 as the local point.
• With Feng Chi GB-20 and DU-14 (Great Hammer) — for headache with fever and aversion to cold, the Tai Yang exterior pattern SI-07's first recorded action addresses.
• With Xiao Hai SI-08 and Yang Lao SI-06 — along its own channel, for elbow and forearm pain; SI-06 is the Xi-Cleft point immediately below it and SI-08 the He-Sea point at the elbow above.
• Method — Sacred Lotus sources & references record moxibustion as applicable at this point.

Where does SI-07 sit among its category peers?

Sacred Lotus sources & references hold the complete set of fifteen Connecting points: the twelve channel Luo points — LU-07 Lie Que, LI-06 Pian Li, ST-40 Feng Long, SP-04 Gong Sun, HT-05 Tong Li, SI-07 Zhi Zheng, BL-58 Fei Yang, KI-04 Da Zhong, P-06 Nei Guan, SJ-05 Wai Guan, GB-37 Guang Ming and LIV-05 Li Gou — together with REN-15 Jiu Wei, the Connecting point of the Conception Vessel, DU-01 Chang Qiang, the Connecting point of the Governing Vessel, and SP-21 Da Bao, the Great Connecting point of the Spleen. Four of the twelve — LU-07, P-06, SJ-05 and SP-04 — also carry a Confluent-point classification for an extraordinary vessel; SI-07 does not. It is a Connecting point and nothing else, which is what makes it and HT-05 the cleanest pair in the set for showing what the classification does on its own. Within its own channel SI-07 sits between Yang Lao SI-06, the Xi-Cleft point, and Xiao Hai SI-08, the He-Sea and Earth point, with Wan Gu SI-04 as the channel's Yuan-Source point at the wrist.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (both location records, the Luo-Connecting classification, the full fifteen-point Connecting set, the twelve Yuan-Source points and the SI-03, SI-04, SI-05, SI-06, SI-08, HT-05, HT-07, BL-10, GB-20 and DU-14 records, all queried directly in the live point records); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 238); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 168); cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SI-07 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 238): On a line connecting Yanggu SI-5 and Xiaohai SI-8, 5 cun proximal to Yanggu SI-5, in the groove between the anterior border of the ulna and the muscle belly of flexor carpi ulnaris.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 168): On the line joining Yanggu (SI-5) and Xiaohai (SI-8), 5 cun proximal to the dorsal crease of the wrist.

How is SI-07 Zhi Zheng needled in the textbooks?

Reference record only — this documents what the standard texts state, not instruction for a reader. Sacred Lotus sources & references record perpendicular insertion of 0.5 to 0.8 inch at SI-07, with moxibustion noted as applicable. Deadman & Al-Khafaji record a comparable range and additionally describe oblique insertion directed along the channel where the forearm itself is the problem.

• Angle documented: perpendicular; an oblique variant along the channel is recorded for local forearm complaints.
• Depth documented: approximately 0.5–0.8 cun.
• Moxibustion: documented as applicable.

What lies beneath the point

This is a low-hazard point, and it is worth saying so directly rather than attaching a generic warning. SI-07 lies in the groove between the ulna and the muscle belly of flexor carpi ulnaris, on the back-and-inner aspect of the mid forearm, with bone immediately deep to it. There is no lung, no body cavity, no viscus and no great vessel within reach of the recorded depth, and the standard references attach no special prohibition to it. It carries none of the anatomical exposure of the points over the thorax, the upper back or the neck. The structures that are present are the small vessels and cutaneous nerves of the forearm, so minor bleeding and a sharp local sensation are the ordinarily documented occurrences.

No pregnancy contraindication is recorded for SI-07 in our sources or in the standard reference literature; on the hand and forearm that caution attaches to LI-04 He Gu. Standard clean-needle practice applies. For context rather than alarm: a meta-analysis of prospective clinical studies estimated serious adverse events from acupuncture at approximately 1 per 10,000 patients and around 8 per million treatments, and concluded that acupuncture is among the safer treatments in medicine (Bäumler P et al., BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961, PMID 34489268). Those events cluster at a small number of anatomically exposed points, and SI-07 is not among them.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling record, both location records); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 238); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 168); PMID 34489268 — verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation.

What does the name Zhi Zheng mean?

Zhi Zheng means "Branch to the Correct" — zhi, a branch or offshoot, and zheng, that which is correct, upright, principal or proper. Sacred Lotus sources & references translate it exactly that way. The name is a technical description of the point's function rather than of its surroundings, which is unusual and worth noticing. The branch is the connecting vessel that leaves the Small Intestine channel here; the correct or principal channel it goes to is the Heart. In other words the name states the Luo-Connecting classification outright: this is the point where a branch departs for the paired primary channel. A second reading turns on zheng in its sense of upright or true — the Small Intestine, the "separator of the pure from the impure" in Chinese medicine, being understood to sort what is proper from what is not.

Why does the Luo-Connecting classification matter at SI-07?

The Connecting or Luo points are where a channel throws off a branching vessel that crosses to its interior-exterior partner. Choosing a Luo point is the classical way to treat two paired channels with one needle, and it is also the way to treat a channel's own superficial branch. The Ling Shu sets out the fifteen connecting vessels, giving for each the course it runs and the symptoms of its excess and deficiency. For the Small Intestine's vessel the classical account describes it separating at Zhi Zheng and running up the arm to the elbow and on to the shoulder; the excess symptoms recorded are looseness and weakness of the elbow joint, and the deficiency symptom is the appearance of warts on the skin — which is why an otherwise unremarkable forearm point carries a skin indication that appears nowhere else on the channel.

The classification is also what explains SI-07's mental-emotional indications. Mania, agitation and fright are Heart territory, not Small Intestine territory. They attach to this point because the connecting vessel goes to the Heart, and for no other reason.

What is the Yuan-Luo pairing for SI-07?

Each of the twelve channel Connecting points is classically paired in use with the Yuan-Source point of its partner channel — the Source point for the channel primarily affected, the partner's Connecting point to bring in the pair. Sacred Lotus sources & references hold all twelve Yuan-Source points, and the Heart and Small Intestine give the textbook example because the two pairings mirror each other exactly:

• SI-07 Zhi Zheng (Small Intestine's Connecting point) with HT-07 Shen Men (Heart's Source point) — used when the Heart is the primarily affected channel.
• HT-05 Tong Li (Heart's Connecting point) with SI-04 Wan Gu (Small Intestine's Source point) — used when the Small Intestine is the primarily affected channel.

All four points are held in this library and all four have their own records here. Reading SI-07 and HT-05 side by side is the clearest way to understand the structure: same relationship, opposite directions, and each point carrying a set of indications that properly belong to the other's organ.

Is there research on SI-07 Zhi Zheng?

SI-07 has a small but genuinely point-specific animal research thread, and it is unusual in one respect: the thing being tested is the Yuan-Luo structure itself. Several independent experiments compared HT-07 alone against HT-07 combined with SI-07 — that is, the Source point alone against the classical Source-plus-Connecting pair — in models of myocardial ischaemia. That is a direct test of a piece of point theory, which is rare.

• The Source-plus-Connecting pair against the Source point alone. Sixty rabbits with experimentally induced acute myocardial ischaemia were randomised to no treatment, to electroacupuncture at HT-07 alone, at P-06 alone, or at HT-07 plus SI-07 — the Source-and-Connecting pair. All three treated groups showed improved ventricular contraction and relaxation rates and lower serum lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase-MB than the untreated model group, and the HT-07 plus SI-07 group was significantly better than either single point on all of those measures (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2010;35(5):363–7, PMID 21235065).
• The same comparison, a different outcome, a different species. Eighty rats with myocardial ischaemia received electroacupuncture at HT-07 alone, at HT-07 with SI-07, or at HT-07 with the Back-Shu point BL-15, daily for a week. Both pairs raised hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor and its receptor above what HT-07 alone achieved, and the two pairs did not differ from each other (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2016;41(1):40–4, PMID 27141619).
• SI-07 tested on its own — and coming second. Forty rabbits with acute myocardial ischaemia received electroacupuncture at P-06, HT-07, LU-09, SI-07 or SP-06. P-06, HT-07 and SI-07 all improved cardiac performance measures where LU-09 and SP-06 did not — but P-06 and HT-07 were significantly better than SI-07 (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2008;33(2):88–92, PMID 18630582). A companion study of cardiac sympathetic nerve activity reached the same ranking: both HT-07 and SI-07 improved cardiac function and sympathetic firing, with HT-07 clearly the stronger (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2007;32(4):243–6, PMID 17907386). A third comparison, of nerve growth factor expression in the cerebral cortex, found HT-07, SI-07 and BL-15 all effective with the Back-Shu point BL-15 the strongest (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2018;43(7):400–5, PMID 30094974). The consistent picture across this group is that SI-07 has a measurable effect in the direction its channel relationship predicts, and that it is the weaker partner of the pair — which is exactly what the tradition says of a Connecting point relative to a Source point.
• Point sensitisation in people. A study comparing pressure-pain thresholds at named points between 60 patients with irritable bowel syndrome and 34 healthy adults found the thresholds of the Small Intestine channel's five transporting points, Front-Mu point and Source point all lowered in the patients, with Zhi Zheng SI-07, Xia Ju Xu ST-39 and Xiao Chang Shu BL-27 among the most markedly reduced (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2016;36(8):835–9, PMID 29231570). This is a measurement of tenderness rather than a treatment result, and it speaks to the traditional idea that a channel's points become sensitised when its organ is disordered.

The honest summary: the research on SI-07 is animal work plus one human sensitisation study, all of it about the Heart-Small Intestine relationship rather than about the point's own indications. Nothing has tested SI-07 for neck stiffness, for febrile disease, for finger spasm or for mania. There is no randomised clinical trial isolating this point, and this site does not suggest otherwise. What the animal work does support, modestly, is the specific claim the Yuan-Luo structure makes — that adding the partner's Connecting point to a Source point does more than the Source point alone.

How does SI-07 compare with the points around it?

Yang Lao SI-06 lies just below it, is the Xi-Cleft point of the channel, and is the point of the group used for acute conditions and for the classical indication of blurred vision in the elderly. Xiao Hai SI-08 at the elbow is the He-Sea and Earth point, and is also the channel's sedation point — Earth being the child of the Small Intestine's Fire. Yang Gu SI-05 at the wrist is the Jing-River and Fire point and the channel's horary point, Fire on a Fire channel. Wan Gu SI-04 is the Yuan-Source point, SI-07's own-channel partner. Hou Xi SI-03 is the Shu-Stream, Wood point and the Confluent point of the Governing Vessel — by a distance the most used point on this channel, and the one a reader is far more likely to have met. And Tong Li HT-05 on the inner forearm is SI-07's exact mirror: the Connecting point of the Heart, connecting back to the Small Intestine. The two are the standard teaching pair for the interior-exterior relationship, and each is written on this site with the other in view.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name, translation, Luo-Connecting classification, the full fifteen-point Connecting set, the twelve Yuan-Source points and the SI-03, SI-04, SI-05, SI-06, SI-08, HT-05 and HT-07 records, all queried directly in the live point records); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 238); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 168); Ling Shu (Spiritual Pivot), Chapter 10, on the fifteen connecting vessels; PMID 21235065; PMID 27141619; PMID 18630582; PMID 17907386; PMID 30094974; PMID 29231570 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.