An important mechanism for acupuncture intervention in central nervous system diseases: ferroptosis regulation

Central nervous system (CNS) diseases are complicated in the pathogenesis, unclear in mechanism, poor in prognosis and high in mortality. Ferroptosis is a new type of programmed cell death characterized by iron mediated lipid peroxidation. The studies in recent years have found that the pathological mechanism of the occurrence and development of various CNS diseases is closely related to ferroptosis of nerve cells. Acupuncture can intervene in CNS diseases by regulating ferroptosis of nerve cells. This paper introduces the exploration on the coordination of ferroptosis with the occurrence and development of CNS diseases and the effect mechanism of acupuncture. It is pointed out that the regulation of ferroptosis is an important mechanism of acupuncture on CNS diseases in view of multidimensional aspects, which is specially related to reducing brain iron load, alleviating oxidative stress, promoting the repair of mitochondrial function, and protecting neurons.