Brain plasticity is referred to the ability of the brain to change in structure and functional activities from microscopic aspects (synapses) in individual neurons to larger-scale aspects such as cortical remapping, neuronal remodeling, etc. in response to injury. Acupuncture has a positive effect in the treatment of cerebral diseases, thus leading to an increasing research on its underlying mechanisms in regulating brain plasticity. The present paper reviewed recent development of studies on acupuncture treatment of Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, cerebral ischemia, bone cancer pain, autism, etc. from 1) regulating synaptic plasticity (up-regulating the proportion of hippocampal synapses, increasing synaptic curvature, post-synaptic density, and numerical density, areal density, and lowering synaptic cleft); 2) increasing hippocampal post-synaptic potential slop, peak and peak area of population spikes to evoke long-term potentiation (LTP) by regulating the expression of glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and alpha amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propionic acid (AMPA) receptors, and growth associated protein (GAP-43); 3) down-regulating the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) to suppress the activity of astrocytes in the ischemic cerebral area and hippocampus in cerebral ischemia rats, and in the spinal cord dorsal horns of bone cancer rats, etc. and promoting vimentin and connexin 43 expression; and 4) promoting neuronal remodeling, and repair and regeneration of the injured nerve in the central nervous system via regulating neuron-glia network, expression of nerve growth factor, brain derived neurotrophic factor, etc. The future studies should pay more attention to 1) the contribution of acupuncture intervention to the correlation between the initiation of the endogenous protective effect and the brain plasticity during the onset of nerve injury and repair of the injured nerve, and 2) standarization of stimulating quantity, manipulation and duration of acupuncture treatment, as well as the relationship between the stimulating quantity and efficacy.
Keywords: Acupuncture; Brain plasticity; Mechanism research; Protein expression.