Heart meridian, Hand Shaoyin

Course of the channel

It begins in the Heart, emerges into the vessels around the heart, descends through the diaphragm to connect with the Small Intestine. A branch rises beside the throat to the eye. The main line goes from the heart to the Lung, emerges in the armpit at Jiquan, runs down the inner back of the arm, passes the elbow at Shaohai, follows the ulnar edge of the forearm to the wrist at Shenmen, enters the palm and ends at the tip of the little finger.

Show the channel on the model

Key points

• Jiquan (HT1). Point code by WHO 2008.
• Shaohai (HT3). Point code by WHO 2008.
• Shenmen (HT7). Point code by WHO 2008.

The channel has 9 points on each side. The World Health Organization standardised their locations in 2008, and this atlas uses its codes.

Disorders of the channel

When disturbed the throat is dry, the heart aches and there is thirst with a desire to drink. Disorders it governs include yellow eyes, pain in the ribs, pain along the inner back of the arm, and hot painful palms.

These are the words of the Lingshu, chapter 10. They name patterns, not diagnoses, and any of them calls for a medical examination.

Hour of the channel

In the midnight noon ebb and flow, qi and blood peak in the Heart meridian at the Wu hour, from 11:00 to 13:00. Chinese medicine reads symptoms that worsen at a fixed hour through this cycle, and tonifies or drains a channel at its hour. Chronobiology confirms that many body functions follow a daily rhythm, but has not confirmed the twelve channel sequence.

What anatomy says

The Heart meridian is the shortest, with nine points, running along the ulnar edge of the arm near the ulnar nerve. Shenmen at the wrist crease beside the pisiform bone is often used for insomnia and anxiety in trials. The referred pain of a heart attack down the inner left arm overlaps strikingly with this course, but Western medicine explains it through shared spinal segments rather than a channel.

Organ and paired channel

Organ: HeartPaired: Small Intestine meridian, Hand Taiyang

The twelve channels in order of the qi flow:

Questions and answers

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Sources

1. Yellow Emperor Inner Classic, Spiritual Pivot (Lingshu), chapter 10 Jingmai. The course and disorders of the twelve channels are summarised from this chapter.
2. WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region, World Health Organization, 2008. Point counts and codes follow this standard. iris.who.int/handle/10665/353407
3. WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region, 2007. English channel names follow this standard. iris.who.int/handle/10665/206952
4. Langevin H. M., Yandow J. A. Relationship of acupuncture points and meridians to connective tissue planes. The Anatomical Record, 2002. The connective tissue plane hypothesis. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12467083/
5. 3D model: Z-Anatomy (CC BY-SA 4.0), built on BodyParts3D, The Database Center for Life Science. Meridian paths are drawn by the atlas on the skin of this model as an approximate illustration, not a measured atlas of points.

Compiled and reviewed by Master Ung Khiem

© 2026 Master Ung Khiem · UK MASTER CORP. The text of this library is protected by copyright. Reposting all or part of it without written permission is not allowed. Short quotations must credit the source and link back to the original page. The 3D model is from Z-Anatomy and BodyParts3D (The Database Center for Life Science) under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

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