BDNF and post-traumatic stress disorder: A recent study demonstrated that acupuncture could upregulate the expression of Nrf2, HO-1, BDNF, and AMPK phosphorylation in PTSD model animals, whereas knocking out Nrf2 could reverse the protective effect of acupuncture, implying that acupuncture may play a role in the treatment of PTSD via the Keap1-Nrf2 pathway (Zhou et al., 2019).