Depression is one of the major public health problems affecting both individuals and society. Acupuncture the-rapy has a positive effect in relieving depression

which has been researched widely in recent years. In the present paper

we reviewed the development of experimental researches on the mechanisms of acupuncture underlying relief of depressive disorders from eight aspects: 1) transmission of neural information

2) neuroendocrine

3) neural plasticity

4) changes of signal pathways in the brain

5) changes of related inflammatory cytokines

6) neuroimaging(the related cerebral regions)

7) changes of whole genome

and 8) changes of other related systems. These results may provide a useful reference for future researches.