Dry needling tends to target myofascial triggerpoints which are usually the direct and palpable source of patient pain, rather than the traditional "meridians", accessed via acupuncture. Nowadays, western acupuncture has become very popular because it uses western medical philosophies to explain its actions. This makes a lot more sense to the western of thinking about what is happening in our body. What differentiates dry needling from traditional acupuncture is that it does not use the full range of traditional theories of Chinese Medicine - actually for most practitioners it probably doesn't consider them at all. Various research supports the notion that simultaneous paraspinal muscles needling (in addition to the distally affected muscle) can be helpful where perhaps damage to a nerve has been instrumental in the development of muscle spasm - for example we might place needles in the lumbar region while treating a calf sprain or in the neck while treating say, tennis elbow.