Studies show that the inflammatory reaction plays an important role in cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury.Post-ischemic inflammation is a dynamic process involving a series of complicated interactions among various inflammatory cells and molecules.Recently

researches on the effect of acupuncture in inhibiting post-ischemic inflammation had been conducted and achieved favorable results.Authors of the present paper review the recent development of studies on the underlying neuroprotective mechanism of acupuncture in inhibiting post-ischemic inflammation in the brain tissue from 1) regulation of inflammatory cytokines and mediators

2) inhibition of leucocytic infiltration

3) modulation of the activated state of glial cells

and 4) suppression of the expression of the related transcription factors.Moreover

combining the key target point

peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ(PPAR-γ) mediating the process of post-ischemic inflammatory cascade response

this paper discusses the future research trend.Joint application of acupuncture and medication(including Chinese herbal medicines) for mediating the key target of post-ischemic inflammation cascade should be studied in both clinical practice and basic experiments.