Disciplines of medicinal formulas for insomnia by data mining

To elucidate the common syndromes of insomnia in modern society and provide solid foundation for clinical and experimental study, disciplines of medicinal formulas for insomnia were analyzed by data mining systematically. Using “insomnia”, “no sleep”, or “difficulty to fall asleep” as keywords, China National Knowledge Internet and VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals were searched for literatures published between 2005 and 2010. 139 formulas, referred to 152 medicines, were involved. 17 medicines, frequency of which is over 20%, were considered as key medicines to be classified to 7 groups by factor analysis, combined with pharmacological knowledge of TCM, 5 principles of treatment for insomnia were concluded: tranquilizing and allaying excitement, tranquilizing by nourishing the blood or yin, smoothing liver, promoting blood circulation, and extinguishing fire. It can be inferred, insomnia is a complicated disease, the pathology of which can be deficiency or excessive, in modern society, the deficiency syndromes especially refer to deficiency of heart in blood, yin or qi, and organs “spleen”, “liver” or “kidney” can be involved simultaneously, and the excessive syndromes could be stagnation of the liver qi, accumulation of blood stasis, or exuberance of heart or liver fire, so based on theories of TCM, the data mining technology is profound to analyze the compatibility rules of formulas, which will provide goals and ideas for further clinical and experimental study of TCM.