Acupuncture can make rats with spinal injuries walk again. However, this was not due to improved energy flow or “qi” in their bodies, but rather because the therapy may have reduced the inflammatory response and prevented the apoptosis of nerve cells. The scientific credibility of acupuncture therapy is growing. Experiments have shown that acupuncture improves sensory and motor function in patients with spinal cord injuries. To discover how, Doo Choi and colleagues at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea, artificially damaged the spinal cords of 75 rats. One third of the rats received acupuncture at two points: the Suigou point (or Renzhong), located between the nose and lips, and the Yanglingquan point (located diagonally below the knee, in the slightly anterior depression of the small head of the fibula on the lateral side of the lower leg). The other rats were not treated or received “sham acupuncture”. After 35 days, the rats in the acupuncture group were able to stand and walk better on a steep incline compared to the rats in the other groups. Inking the paws showed a good level of coordination of front and hind limb movements, with very little toe dragging, while the control group still dragged their feet. Rats in the acupuncture group also had less apoptosis of nerve cells and lower levels of proteins associated with spinal cord injury that can induce inflammation and thus exacerbate nerve damage. One explanation for this is that sharp needling triggers a stress response that suppresses the inflammatory response. In humans, the inflammatory response that follows a spinal cord injury is the cause of apoptosis. Zhen Zheng of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, says the results are “very encouraging. But she thinks we still don’t know if the results will be applied to humans. For example, rats in the experiment received acupuncture immediately after spinal cord injury, but most (human) patients did not receive acupuncture until at least three months after the spinal cord was damaged.