Recent development of acupuncture on Parkinson's disease.
OBJECTIVE
Parkinson's disease is a complex disease with multiple etiological factors involved in disease pathogenesis, and the molecular and cellular pathways for neurodegeneration are still elusive.


METHODS
We reviewed all the relevant laboratory findings regarding acupuncture mechanism on Parkinson's disease.


RESULTS
Acupuncture treatments in animal experiments have generated valuable mechanistic insights of Parkinson's disease and shown that acupuncture therapy is in fact a neuroprotective therapy which increases various neuroprotective agents such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor and cyclophilin A. In addition, acupuncture therapy decreases cell death processes and attenuates oxidative stress to substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that early application of acupuncture therapy for Parkinson's disease patients may be helpful for the best efficacy of acupuncture treatment.
Joh
Tong H
TH
Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10021, USA.
Park
Hi-Joon
HJ
Kim
Seung-Nam
SN
Lee
Hyejung
H
D015670:Acupuncture Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy*