ArticleJournal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism2018
Electroacupuncture brain protection during ischemic stroke: A role for the parasympathetic nervous system.
Article in Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of electroacupuncture on neurological outcomes and brain-gut axis-associated changes in experimental ischemic stroke models: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Experimental evidence-based construction of electroacupuncture for ischemic stroke: a meta-analysis and systematic review.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Stimulating the Facial Nerve to Treat Ischemic Stroke: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Pooled it
- Article
- Electroacupuncture-based vagal stimulation attenuates epileptic seizures through a body-brain circuit.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- The role of acupuncture as a complementary therapy for sepsis: a narrative review of the evidence and future trial directions.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- Novel insights of acupuncture in ischemic stroke: orchestrating neuro-endocrine-immune network.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Deciphering the disease ecosystem of ischemic stroke via multi-omics and prospects for therapeutic strategies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Electroacupuncture alleviates cognitive impairment in mice with vascular dementia by regulating the cholinergic vasodilation system.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Article
- Harnessing electroacupuncture: a promising strategy against sleep deprivation-exacerbated post-cardiac arrest brain injury.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effect of DU meridian acupuncture and temporal three-needle on vascular protection mechanisms in patients with acute cerebral infarction: a randomized controlled evaluator-blinded clinical trial.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Electroacupuncture protects against cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury via regulating P2×7R expression.Cerebral circulation - cognition and behavior · 2025Article
- Acupoint catgut embedding attenuates oxidative stress and cognitive impairment in chronic cerebral ischemia by inhibiting the Ang II/AT1R/NOX axis.Pflugers Archiv : European journal of physiology · 2024Article
- Electroacupuncture Ameliorates Neuronal Injury by NLRP3/ASC/Caspase-1 Mediated Pyroptosis in Cerebral Ischemia-Reperfusion.Molecular neurobiology · 2024Article
- Trends in Acupuncture Therapy for Microcirculation and Hemorheology from 1998 to 2023: A Bibliometric and Visualized Study.Journal of pain research · 2024Article
- Molecular Hydrogen Mediates Neurorestorative Effects After Stroke in Diabetic Rats: the TLR4/NF-κB Inflammatory Pathway.Journal of neuroimmune pharmacology : the official journal of the Society on NeuroImmune Pharmacology · 2023Article
- Article
- Electroacupuncture ameliorates cerebrovascular impairment in Alzheimer's disease mice via melatonin signaling.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2023Article
- Adipose tissue, systematic inflammation, and neurodegenerative diseases.Neural regeneration research · 2023Review
- The regulations on cortical activation and functional connectivity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex-primary somatosensory cortex elicited by acupuncture with reinforcing-reducing manipulation.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The demand for using parasympathetic activation for stroke therapy is unmet. In the current study, we investigated whether the neuroprotection provided by electroacupuncture (EA) in an experimental stroke model was associated with activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The results showed that parasympathetic dysfunction (PD), performed as unilateral vagotomy combined with peripheral atropine, attenuated both the functional benefits of EA and its effects in improving cerebral perfusion, reducing infarct volume, and hindering apoptosis, neuronal and peripheral inflammation, and oxidative stress. Most importantly, EA rats showed a dramatically less reduction in the mRNA level of choline acetyltransferase, five subtypes of muscarinic receptors and α7nAChR, suggesting the inhibition of the impairment of the central cholinergic system; EA also activated dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus, the largest source of parasympathetic pre-ganglionic neurons in the lower brainstem (detected by c-fos immunohistochemistry), and PD suppressed these changes. These findings indicated EA may serve as an alternative modality of PNS activation for stroke therapy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.