Fig. 6.

Schematic flow-chart of experimental design. Capped line represents 1 week time progression from left to right. Red arrow denotes the daily l-dopa injection with or without acupuncture treatment. On day 0, all mice were given saline or 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) injections as determined by their group assignments (dopamine depleted or control). Two weeks later, an apomorphine test and an acute l-dopa induction test were performed to validate Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID), respectively. Through these validation tests, PD or LID un-induced mice were exclusively screened. Three weeks after surgery, all mice were further subdivided into experimental groups for the main experiment. If necessary, behavioural tests were performed on day 22 to examine the dose-response motor function. On day 30, final behavioural tests were performed with cylinder test and abnormal involuntary movement scoring. All experiments were finished on day 31.