title: Recent development of acupuncture on Parkinson's disease.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10021, USA.
authors.forename: Tong H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Joh
authors.forename: Hi-Joon
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Seung-Nam
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Hyejung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D015670:Acupuncture Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy*