Acupuncture points, also known as acupoints or tsubo, are locations on a person's anatomy that are the center of attention of acupuncture, acupressure, sonopuncture as well as laser acupuncture treatments. More than a few hundred acupuncture points are distributed along a meridian and there are also many other extra points that do not have any association with a particular meridian. Today, a lot of research is taking place in China and acupuncture points that are used in various acupuncture treatments may or may not be located in the same part of the body as the targeted symptom.

Almost 400 Basic Acupuncture Points on the Meridian

The different acupuncture points that are located on a person's body are generally found through a technique of measurement that is calibrated according to the distance to a number of different landmark points on the body. It is believed that there exist almost 400 basic acupuncture points on the meridians though many are never used while some are considered valuable for therapeutic reasons and are most used for a number of different health conditions.

To locate an acupuncture point, the acupuncturist may need to do so by palpation for tenderness and points may be located through feeling for minute differences in temperature on the surface of the skin as well as through changes in the skin's tension or stickiness. To identify a particular acupoint, its traditional name or the name of the meridian on which it is located, are used.

Some of the acupuncture points are given different functions that correspond to different systems and these include Five Transporting Points, Five Phase Points, Xi-cleft, Yuan-source, Luo-connecting, Back-shu, Front-mu, and Hui-meeting. In addition, there are also microsystems of acupuncture points that are not generally located on the meridian.

This is shown by auriculotherapy which uses the outside of the ear microsystem exclusively, even though there are thousands of points that do not lie on the meridian but are still located on the outer ear's surface. Even the Korean version of hand acupuncture makes use of acupoints on the hand and there are also some extra points that neither lie on the meridian nor are they part of a microsystem.

The clinical use of acupuncture points has very often been heavily dependent on the conceptual framework of traditional Chinese medicine and this has led some scholars to call it pseudoscientific. These points are also used in martial arts to inflict pain as well as attack a muscle to cause it to contract and also to apply pressure in the carotid artery to make the body be able to control blood flow into the brain.