REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Headache and Neurogenic Pain
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1587471
The analgesic mechanism of electroacupuncture at the central level for neuropathic pain: a review of studies based on animal experiments
Provisionally accepted
- Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China
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This article analyzes the progress of animal experiments on the analgesic mechanism of electroacupuncture (EA) at the central level for neuropathic pain (NP) in the past 10 years, and summarizes the analgesic mechanism of EA at the central level for NP. EA, as a safe and reliable treatment, can treat NP by regulating the release of noci-ceptive neurotransmitters and receptors, upregulating the expression of non-coding RNA (ncRNA), inhibiting the activation of microglia, Ca2+/calmodulin kinase II (CaMKII) phosphorylation, dendritic spine remodeling, endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS), and glucose metabolism. NP is a type of pain caused by various diseases. Pain caused by stroke, spinal cord injury, postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), diabetes, and chemotherapy-induced neuropathy all fall into the category of NP, which makes the treatment of NP very challenging. At present, EA research on the treatment of NP is more focused on the mechanism of the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, and there are relatively few animal experiments at the level of the central brain region. There is also a lack of clinical trials using human subjects and relevant biochemical indicators. In the future, electrophysiology, neuron tracing, and multi-omics techniques com-bined with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence should be used to further improve the analgesic mechanism of EA on the central level for NP, making EA the best treatment for NP.
Keywords: Electroacupuncture, neuropathic pain, Central mechanisms, spinal dorsal horn, Brain regions, Animal Models
Received: 04 Mar 2025; Accepted: 06 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qi, Han, Cui, Zhou, Sun, Ding, Yu, Zhang and Yin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hongna Yin, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China
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