Excessive autophagy is one of the crucial factors of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury(CIRI)

which has been demonstrated to be one of the targets for acupuncture treatment of ischemic stroke.In the present paper

we make a review about the development of acupuncture intervention induced improvement of CIRI(such as reducing the infarction area

improving learning-memory ability and motor function)by regulating autophagy in animal studies.Outcomes showed that acupuncture intervention can function in 1)inhibiting CIRI-induced increase of the number of lysosomes and autophagic lysosomes

and relieving structural injury of mitochondria

and reducing the number of autophagosome in the central region of the ischemic cerebral cortex tissue;2)down-regulating the expression of microtubule-associated proteinⅡlight chain 3(LC3Ⅱ)and the ratio of LC3-Ⅱ/LC3-Ⅰin the ischemic cerebral region

and 3)regulating the expression of Beclin 1(autophagy-related gene)

promoting the expression of P62(autophagy-related adaptor protein).In addition

acupuncture can also regulate phosphoinositide 3 kinase(PI3 K)-protein kinase B(AKT)-mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1(mTOR)signaling at different time-points(down-regulation at the early stage and up-regulation at the later stage)

and activating AMP-activated protein kinase(AMPK)-mTOR-UNC51-like kinase-1 signaling to relieve cerebral ischemic injury.These results reveal some mechanisms of acupuncture therapy underlying improvement of CIRI and provide experimental basis for clinical application of acupuncture therapy in the treatment of ischemic stroke.