Jie Wang, MM,a Haishen Zhao, MM,b, * Kejun Shi, MM,b and Manya Wang, MMb

a Department of Pain, Datong Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanxi Province, Datong, China

b Department of Rehabilitation, Luchaogang Community Health Service Center, Pudong New District, Shanghai, China.

Corresponding author.

Jie Wang: moc.qq@2896223932; Kejun Shi: moc.361@gnafat; Manya Wang: moc.qq@2896223932

* Correspondence: Haishen Zhao, Department of Rehabilitation, Luchaogang Community Health Service Center, Pudong New District, Shanghai 201308, China (e-mail: moc.621@666nehsiahoahz).

Abstract

Insomnia is a sleep disorder which severely affects patients mood, quality of life and social functioning, serves as a trigger or risk factor to a variety of diseases such as depression, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, obesity and diabetes, and even increases the risk of suicide, and has become an increasingly widespread concern worldwide. Considerable research on insomnia has been conducted in modern medicine in recent years and encouraging results have been achieved in the fields of genetics and neurobiology. Unfortunately, however, the pathogenesis of insomnia remains elusive to modern medicine, and pharmacological treatment of insomnia has been regarded as conventional. However, in the course of treatment, pharmacological treatment itself is increasingly being questioned due to potential dependence and drug resistance and is now being replaced by cognitive behavior therapy as the first-line treatment. As an important component of complementary and alternative medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, especially non-pharmacological treatment methods such as acupuncture, is gaining increasing attention worldwide. In this article, we discuss the combination of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and medicine to treat insomnia based on neurobiology in the context of modern medicine.

Keywords: acupuncture, Chinese herbal formula, Chinese medicine, genetics, heart-brain axis, herbal medicine, herbal medicine, insomnia, neurobiology, sleep mechanism