Studies have shown that GV20-based EA can regulate basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF2) in the rat hippocampus (Yao et al., 2021), enhance the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) pathway in a rat model of cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury (Wang et al., 2021), and reduce microglial triggering while decreasing levels of IL-1β and IL-6 in cerebral tissue in aged mice (Sun et al., 2022). Here, FGF2 is linked to injury.