Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic progressive neurological degenerative disease caused by the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. α-synuclein (α-Syn) misfolding and aggregation is the crucial pathogenesis of PD, and is closely related to the other pathogenesis, such as brain-gut axis dysfunction, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, iron and lipid metabolic disorders, and autophagy lysosomal dysfunction. Acupuncture plays a neuroprotective role by attenuating neuroinflammation, regulating brain-gut axis, repairing ubiquitin-proteasome system and autophagy lysosomal system, and modulating signaling pathways, so as to inhibit α-Syn abnormal folding and aggregation. This article reviews the effect of α-Syn in the pathogenesis of PD and acupuncture treatment, so as to provide the valuable guidance for clinical treatment.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease commonly seen in middle-aged and elderly people. Acupuncture can effectively reduce the symptoms of PD and improve the life quality of patients. In this paper, we reviewed the relevant literature on acupuncture modulation of PD inflammation in recent years from the perspective of neuroinflammation. The results showed that the mechanism of acupuncture for inflammatory responses in treatment of PD is closely related to inhibiting the glial cell activation, regulating the peripheral immune cells, suppressing the release of inflammatory factors, inducing anti-inflammatory factor expression, modulating the expression of inflammatory signaling pathways, and attenuating the intestinal inflammation. It may be effective for alleviating neuroinflammation, reducing neuronal damage, and delaying the progression of PD. This paper provides the evidences and ideas for the deepening research of the mechanism of PD treated with acupuncture and moxibustion in the future.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neuro-degenerative disease that is common in middle-aged and elderly people, and its incidence is increasing year by year. Studies have shown that pathological products produced by a series of pathological cascade reactions in the enteric nervous system (ENS) of PD patients travel to the brain through the vagus nerve pathway in the microbial-gut-brain axis, and ultimately lead to the occurrence and development of PD. Acupuncture plays an important role in interfering with pathological products of ENS, restoring ecological balance of intestine and delaying PD process. In this paper, the effects of acupuncture on intestinal flora, production of related microbial products, α-synuclein, neuroinflammatory response and oxidative stress in patients or animal model with PD were reviewed.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease commonly seen in middle-aged and elderly people. The incidence of PD is increasing year by year, which seriously affects the patients’ quality of life. Oxidative stress (OS) is one of the pathogeneses of PD. In recent years, with the deepening of research, it has been found that OS is closely related to other PD-related pathogenesis, such as the susceptibility of substantia nigra, mitochondrial dysfunction, abnormal folding of α-synuclein (α-Syn), nitric oxide (NO) increasing, endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS), decreased antioxidant capacity, etc., which is considered to be the central link of the complex convergence of various pathogenesis. A large number of studies also have shown that acupuncture has great potential in regulating OS and treatment of PD. In the present article, we reviewed the role of OS in PD pathology and the mechanism of acupuncture in the treatment of PD by improving OS in recent years: 1) acupuncture acts on Parkinson’s disease by increasing antioxidant enzyme levels, 2) acupuncture works in Parkinson’s disease by improving pathways related to OS (Nrf2/ARE, PI3K/Akt), 3) acupuncture acts on Parkinson’s disease by improving OS-related neuroinflammation, and 4) acupuncture acts on Parkinson’s disease by improving the cerebral-intestinal axis associated oxidative stress.