ReviewChinese medicine2025
Mechanisms of acupuncture in treating depression: a review.
Review in Chinese medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Research trends and hotspots of electroacupuncture for depression: a bibliometric and visual analysis (2005-2025).Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy of various acupuncture modalities on alleviating symptoms in Parkinson's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2025Pooled it
- Olink proteomics identifies FGF-19 as a treatment-responsive inflammatory biomarker associated with acupuncture intervention in young females with mild depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Clinical Efficacy of Mind-Regulating Acupuncture on Post-Stroke Depression Based on the "Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis" Theory: A Randomized Controlled Study.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2025Trial
- Self-administered acupressure training for depression in community-dwelling individuals: a randomized controlled trial and cost-effectiveness analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Joint association of depression and physical activity with incident cardiometabolic multimorbidity (CMM) among middle-aged and older adults in China.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Integrative Management of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: The Role of Traditional Chinese Medicine.Depression and anxiety · 2026Review
- New perspective on acupuncture treatment for obesity: mechanisms in the brain based on multidimensional neural circuits.American journal of translational research · 2026Review
- Mechanism-Driven Translation of Electroacupuncture for Depression: Bridging the Gap Between Preclinical and Clinical Research.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Review
- Efficacy and safety of adjunctive acupuncture for depression and motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Data Mining-Based Analysis of Acupoint Selection Patterns in Acupuncture Treatment for Lumbar Disc Herniation.Journal of pain research · 2026Review
- Electroacupuncture ameliorates chronic heart failure: the role of CRH neurons in the paraventricularnucleus of the hypothalamus.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Management of depression utilizing Traditional Chinese Medicine.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Review
- Central Neurobiological Mechanisms of Acupuncture in Post-Stroke Depression: Multi-Target and Network-Based Regulation.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Review
- Acupuncture Modulation of the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis in Major Depressive Disorder: Integrative Mechanisms, Emerging Evidence, and Future Therapeutic Perspectives.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Review
- Acupressure for Sleep, Mental Health, and Quality of Life in Hemodialysis Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nature and science of sleep · 2026Review
- Article
- Brain TRPV1 channel-mediated calcium influx: the immunomodulatory pathway of acupuncture in neuroinflammation.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Applying Target Trial Emulation to Evaluate Acupuncture Combined with Rehabilitation for Autism Spectrum Disorder in Children: A Retrospective Single-Center Real-World Protocol.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2025Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAcupuncture as a representative treatment method of traditional Chinese medicine, has been found to have a significant effect on mild to moderate depression without obvious side effects, but the mechanism through which it exerts its antidepressant effect is still unclear.
methodsWe searched PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases for basic research on acupuncture in the treatment of depression from the database established to June 14, 2024, and finally included 44 studies from 2020 to June 14, 2024, into the table analysis. The main outcomes of this study are the effects of acupuncture on the relevant biological indicators of depression model.
resultsBy analyzing the effect of acupuncture on rodent model of depression, the mechanism of acupuncture against depression was explored. In general, several acupuncture methods, mainly based on electroacupuncture (EA), regulate the levels of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), glutamic acid (Glu) and dopamine (DA), regulate the calcium signaling pathway, increase the expression of synaptic protein, promote mitochondrial repair and reduce oxidative stress, and enhance synaptic plasticity. Inhibition of key inflammatory pathways such as P2X7R/NLRP3 and NF-κB signaling pathways, regulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) function, and tryptophan metabolism improved depression-like behavior in rodent models.
conclusionsIn summary, acupuncture treatment represented by EA has multiple mechanisms to play a role by regulating neurotransmitter balance, improving neuroplasticity, reducing inflammatory responses, and regulating the neuroendocrine system. However, the differences between acupoint catgut embedding (ACE), manual acupuncture (MA), and EA in the treatment of depression and the operating parameters of EA in the treatment of depression with different causes (such as frequency, intensity, duration, etc.) still need further research to be confirmed. This review has not been registered with PROSPERO or other protocol registration platforms because protocol registration was not a mandatory requirement for this study.
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What Socratic holds
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 Socratic graph.