Alzheimer's disease(AD) is one of the major diseases threatening the aged people's health.In the present paper

the authors reviewed development of studies on acupuncture treatment of AD from: 1) regulating release of neurotransmitters(cholinergic

amino-acids and monoamine neurotransmitters)

2) protecting cerebral neurons from apoptosis(anti-oxidative stress

improving synaptic plasticity

and suppressing apoptosis)

3) improving levels of neurotrophic factors

4) regulating hip-pocampal intracellular signaling

5) inhibiting inflammatory reactions of the brain tissue

6) adjusting the level of abnormal proteins(microtubule-associated protein

β-amyloid)

and 7) up-regulating the level of autophagy activity.However

current experimental studies can not completely answer clinical questions due to limited model designs and complicated pathological mechanisms of AD.Many findings of biological indexes need being verified further.Reasonable therapeutic regimens of acupuncture formulated according to syndrome differentiation will help improving clinical curative effect and the corresponding research on new therapeutic targets may be helpful to our understanding about the mechanism of acupuncture.