In the present paper

the authors review the progress of researches on the mechanism of acupuncture therapy underlying improvement of acute cerebral hemorrhage from experimental studies and research methods.The effects of acupuncture intervention mainly involve 1) lessening inflammatory reactions

2) reducing impairment of free radicals and excitatory amino acids on cerebral neurons

3) balancing release of vascular bioactive substances to increase regional cerebral blood flow

and 4) promoting repair and regeneration of the neural tissue

etc.In regard to the research methods

many new biological techniques such as biological molecular approaches

neuro-cellular chemical methods

reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) or quantitative real time-PCR

situ hybridization

western blotting

electron microscope

etc.

have been extensively applied to researches on the underlying mechanism of acupuncture therapy for cerebral infarction.In addition

the authors also pointed out that in spite of achieving some bigger progresses in experimental studies

most of the results basically reflect static

isolated and regional changes rather than dynamic and whole body changes.For this reason

more vivo research techniques and noninvasive research methods are highly recommended to be used in the future research on the underlying mechanisms of acupuncture therapy for acute cerebral ischemia.