MicroRNA in Acupuncture Studies: Does Small RNA Shed Light on the Biological Mechanism of Acupuncture?

Table 1

Changes of microRNAs by acupuncture treatment in the stroke and cardiovascular disorder animal model.

Disease model	Author	Year	Species	EA/MA	Acupoint	Acupuncture parameters	Tissue	Result
Stroke	Deng et al.	2016	Rat	EA	GV20	2 Hz/10 Hz, 1 mA, 30 min	Brain	↑ miR-181b
	Zheng et al.	2016	Rat	EA	GV20, GV14	20 Hz, 20 min	Brain (cortex)	↑ miR-132
	Zheng et al.	2016	Rat	EA	GV26, PC6	2 Hz, 0.3 mA, 1 min	Brain	↑ miR-206, ↓ miR-494
	Liu et al.	2016	Rat	EA	LI11, ST36	1 Hz/20 Hz, 30 min	Brain	↑ miR-9
	Zhou et al.	2017	Rat	EA	GV20	1 mA	Brain	↓ miR-191a
	Chen et al.	2016	Rat	EA	GV20, left ST36	2 Hz, 1 mA, 20 min	Heart, blood	↑ miR-124
Cardiovascular disorder	Wang et al.	2014	Rat	MA	LR3	3 mm depth, 5 min	Brain (medulla)	↑ miR-339, miR-145, miR-451
	Liu et al.	2014	Rat	EA	PC6	4 Hz/20 Hz, 0.5 ms, 1 mA, 30 min	Heart	↑ miR-214
	Wang et al.	2015	Rat	MA	LR3	N/A	Brain (medulla)	↑ miR-339, miR-223, miR-145

EA; electroacupuncture, MA; manual acupuncture.