Acupuncture has a significant effect on depression. The paper reviews the mechanism of acupuncture in treatment of depression based on hippocampal neuroplasticity from the relevant articles published in recent years from 3 aspects, i. e. promoting neuronal regeneration, improving synaptic plasticity efficiency, and repairing astrocytes structure and function. Acupuncture can regulate neural plasticity at multiple levels. It can not only directly repair the structure of neurons and glial cells through acupoint stimulation,but also indirectly participate in the regulation of neural plasticity through monoamine neurotransmitters,glutamate receptors,and related protein-mediated signaling pathways.

Programmed cell death (PCD) in the brain occurs throughout the whole process of life, and abnormal PCD may be an important factor leading to encephalopathy. It has been demonstrated that acupuncture has a good cerebral protective effect in the treatment of epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, depression, anxiety, insomnia, migraine and other dozens of brain diseases, and possesses characteristics of multi-point, networking, two-way and holistic regulation. In the present paper, we sum up the protective effect of acupuncture therapy from 1) cell apoptosis (for example, improving post-surgery cognition impairment, traumatic brain injury and ischemic stroke by relieving mitochondrial damage, activating mitochondrial autophagy, increasing blood-brain barrier permeability, and thus reducing cell apoptosis), 2) cell autophagy (for example, improving post-surgery cognition impairment, traumatic brain injury and ischemic stroke by relieving mitochondrial damage, activating mitochondrial autophagy, and increasing blood-brain barrier permeability, and thus reducing cell apoptosis), 3) pyroptosis (for example, inhibiting abnormally-activated inflammasomes, and caspase and gasdermin D activity to remit pyroptosis in the treatment of stroke, depression, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease animal models), 4) ferroptosis (for instance, regulating iron ion metabolism, relieving lipid peroxidation damage, and thus playing a brain protection role in the treatment of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke animal models), 5) necroptosis (inhibiting necrotic apoptosis mediated by receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 in intracerebral hemorrhage rats), and so on. We believe that along with the continuous development of brain science, artificial intelligence, big data and other new concepts and new technologies, it is expected to expand and improve the research level and quality of acupuncture in the prevention and treatment of encephalopathy through faster, more accurate and more comprehensive methods, which will help promote the modern interpretation of the brain protective effect of traditional acupuncture from the perspective of acupuncture regulation of PCD.