Author: Lai HC1, Chang QY2, Hsieh CL1,3,4,5
Affiliation: <sup>1</sup>Department of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung 40447, Taiwan.
<sup>2</sup>Department of Family Medicine, Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung 408, Taiwan.
<sup>3</sup>Chinese Medicine Research Center, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
<sup>4</sup>Research Center for Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
<sup>5</sup>Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
Conference/Journal: Evid Based Complement Alternat Med.
Date published: 2019 Jul 11
Other:
Volume ID: 2019 , Pages: 2909632 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1155/2019/2909632. eCollection 2019. , Word Count: 149
In this article, we review signal transduction pathways through which acupuncture treats nervous system diseases. We electronically searched the databases, including PubMed, MEDLINE, clinical Key, the Cochrane Library, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure from their inception to December 2018 using the following MeSH headings and keywords alone or in varied combination: acupuncture, molecular, signal transduction, genetic, cerebral ischemic injury, cerebral hemorrhagic injury, stroke, epilepsy, seizure, depression, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, vascular dementia, and Parkinson's disease. Acupuncture treats nervous system diseases by increasing the brain-derived neurotrophic factor level and involves multiple signal pathways, including p38 MAPKs, Raf/MAPK/ERK 1/2, TLR4/ERK, PI3K/AKT, AC/cAMP/PKA, ASK1-JNK/p38, and downstream CREB, JNK, m-TOR, NF-κB, and Bcl-2/Bax balance. Acupuncture affects synaptic plasticity, causes an increase in neurotrophic factors, and results in neuroprotection, cell proliferation, antiapoptosis, antioxidant activity, anti-inflammation, and maintenance of the blood-brain barrier.
PMID: 31379957 PMCID: PMC6657648 DOI: 10.1155/2019/2909632