Cerebral ischemia is one of the most common diseases treated by acupuncture therapeutics. Recent studies indicated that acupuncture treatment by needling the conception and governor vessels had positive effects in promoting neural regeneration in patients after cerebral ischemia injury. Acupuncture intervention could continuously promote the proliferation and differentiation of the neural stem cells in the brain, obviously up-regulate expression of growth factors, accelerate angiogenesis and inhibit apoptosis. Hence, it is necessary to present an exhaustive review on the mechanisms. The present review gives a detailed description of pathological changes of cerebral ischemia and acupuncture intervention applied to the conception and governor vessels, and proposes research prospects in the future.