The “meridian” is the core concept of acupuncture medicine. It can be said that almost all the theories and clinical practice of acupuncture and moxibustion in traditional Chinese medicine are based on this concept. However

up to now

scientists have failed in finding the “meridian” described in Chinese classic textbooks and fall into the dilemma of the meridian essence research. In fact

the meridian is independent of currently known anatomical tissues. Nevertheless

researches obtained highly valuable outcomes of life science through long-term studies

especially the cerebral science endowed the meridian theory with new connotations. The modern meridian theory is composed of new knowledge and traditional meridian knowledge. In the present paper

we put forward a new hypothesis that “the brain controls the meridians”

and a new academic paradigm

that is

the meridians research should turn from looking for the structure of meridian to exploring the functions of meridian

which can be realized with the help of brain function.