According to Yellow Emperor's canon of internal medicine written two thousand years ago, there are meridians and collaterals on human body constituting a network channel in which Qi-blood flows. A disease usually begins with a stasis of the channels and slowing the flow of Qi-blood. Acupuncture exerts its curative effects just by cleaning the channels, making Qi-blood running well. Acupoints are some special points on human body which can produce efficient signals to dredge the channels using acupuncture. Therefore, the treated acupoints are usually chosen according to the ill meridian which is called meridian discrimination. But modern acupuncture study pays little attention to the mechanism of acupuncture related with meridians. It seems that acupuncture can work well without the existence of meridians. The fact however is that many chronic diseases which can be diminished or even cured by acupuncture can hardly be explained by modern knowledge. It is therefore necessary to consider the mechanism of acupuncture with the meridians attached. The study of meridians on the other hand has been carried through for a long time. Several hypotheses of meridians were put forward and have gotten certain experimental supports, while none of them got consensus in acupuncture field as the relationship between meridians and acupuncture was poorly expatiated. Demonstrating the curative effects of acupuncture related with meridians and elucidating the mechanism of acupuncture by the principle of meridians are the key steps.

We would like to invite researchers to contribute original articles as well as review papers on meridian research and acupuncture mechanism related with meridians. The manuscripts should be scientific and evidence based. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Comparing the effects of acupuncture with or without acupoint discrimination based on the meridian theory
• Structure and functions of meridians
• How acupoints and meridians are related to each other
• Pathological bases of meridians, that is, what is the stasis of channels?
• Mechanism of acupuncture on regulating meridians and Qi-blood
• Effects and mechanism of acupuncture knife on treating tendon meridian diseases
• Methodology and evaluation of meridian research

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