Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Previous clinical and experimental studies indicate that electroacupuncture is an effective therapy on repairing injured peripheral nerve, and its repair mechanism is always a hot focus of the studies on acupuncture.
OBJECTIVE: To review the progress and the mechanisms of injured peripheral nerve repairing by electroacupuncture therapy, to explore more deeply on the mechanisms of injured peripheral nerve repairing by electro acupuncture therapy, and to improve the curative effect of acupuncture.
METHODS: Papers related to therapy for peripheral nerve injury in CNKI and in Ovid database were searched with Keywords of “electroacupuncture; peripheral nerve regeneration” both in Chinese and English. The articles regarding electro acupuncture, or peripheral nerve regeneration were selected, and the duplicated study or Meta analysis was excluded.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Totally 138 literatures were collected, and 113 of them were excluded, thus, 27 documents were included. Analysis results showed that electro acupuncture is an effective treatment strategy on repairing injured peripheral nerve. The mechanisms are that the action of bioelectricity, the improvement of nutrient contents and structures in motor endplate, the promotion on increasing of nerve growth associated protein, the promotion on increasing of neurotrophy factor 3 and its acceptor, enhanced expression of neurotrophy factor-RNA, and the promotion on Schwann cell generation.