The Main Scalp Acupuncture Systems and How They Differ
One Name, Several Systems
Scalp Acupuncture is a family of systems. There are around ten schools, each with its own map of the scalp, and those maps were never unified.
This guide sets out the main systems side by side. It covers what each one is built on and where the maps differ, and it offers some questions to help you choose. Each system is coherent on its own terms, and the differences here are differences of design.
SustainHealth Academy has run training in three of them. We teach Zhu's Scalp Acupuncture, we have run Yamamoto New Scalp Acupuncture seminars, and we have hosted Jiao Scalp Acupuncture teaching.
Jiao Scalp Acupuncture
Jiao Scalp Acupuncture was developed by Jiao Shunfa in China. It maps functional areas of the scalp to brain functions and is applied mainly to neurological presentations.
Jiao Shunfa was a physician in Shanxi province, and his system is usually dated to the early 1970s. He built it on the functional localisation of the cerebral cortex, projecting areas such as motor, sensory and speech onto the overlying scalp and naming the stimulation areas by function. Many accounts treat it as the system that brought scalp Acupuncture to wide attention.
In 2022 SustainHealth Academy hosted Professor Tianjun Wang, President of the Institute of Scalp Acupuncture UK, for a four-day seminar in Melbourne and a case-based webinar on brain disease and Jiao Scalp Acupuncture.
Zhu's Scalp Acupuncture
Zhu's Scalp Acupuncture (ZSA) was developed by Professor Ming Qing Zhu, beginning in the 1960s. It draws on classical Chinese medicine, including Zang Fu theory, the Huang Di Nei Jing, channel theory and Yin-Yang and Five Element theory, alongside modern neuroanatomy and physiology.
Professor Zhu developed the system over decades of clinical work in China and later the United States, where his clinic in San Jose, California became a centre for teaching it.
ZSA organises the scalp into 19 zones around the Du channel, with Du 20 at the centre dividing the yin side in front from the yang side behind. The zones correspond to regions of the body and organ systems, including the Upper, Middle and Lower Jiao, as well as to the brain beneath. Selection starts from the TCM diagnosis the Acupuncturist already makes. Needling uses ZSA's own manipulation methods, Jin Qi and Chou Qi, combined with Dao Yin, in which the Acupuncturist guides qi to the affected area while the patient takes part, and the response is reassessed within the session.
When an Acupuncturist in our November 2025 webinar asked how ZSA differs from the Jiao, Fang and Yamamoto styles, our teachers answered by describing ZSA itself. What sets it apart is its own treatment areas, its specialised scalp needles and its specialised manipulation techniques, Jin Qi and Chou Qi, combined with Dao Yin.
Professor Zhu taught ZSA seminars for SustainHealth Academy in 2018 and 2019. Our Basics course is taught by Dr Ru Shan Shy and Dr Sheng Chun Chang, two of his direct disciples.
Yamamoto New Scalp Acupuncture (YNSA)
Yamamoto New Scalp Acupuncture is a Japanese system developed by Dr Toshikatsu Yamamoto, a Japanese physician, in 1973. It is a microsystem. The body is represented on the head in somatotopes, with basic points, sensory organ points, brain points, cranial nerve points and Ypsilon points.
Its most distinctive feature is diagnosis by palpation. YNSA uses a set of diagnostic areas, including the Hoku (LI4) area, the upper extremity and the neck, to guide which scalp points are chosen. Our YNSA teachers describe this diagnostic system as what sets YNSA apart from Chinese scalp Acupuncture.
SustainHealth Academy has run YNSA seminars in Melbourne, in 2023 and again in 2024 as Foundations and Advanced courses, with Dr Tetsuharu Kamiya, a direct disciple of Dr Yamamoto and a certified YNSA instructor, and Mika Kamiya. You can register interest in the next YNSA Foundations seminar.
The International Standard Lines
In the 1980s, a standard set of scalp lines was drafted in China and taken into the World Health Organization's proposed standard international Acupuncture nomenclature. It names 14 lines by location, from the Middle Line of the Forehead (MS1) to the Lower-Lateral Line of the Occiput (MS14), and drew on several existing schools.
The aim was a common vocabulary. In practice it was never universally adopted. Most teaching and clinical writing still works inside one school's map, and each school kept its own names, locations and selection logic.
Other Approaches
Many other scalp systems date from the 1970s onwards. Several Chinese systems come from that period, including those associated with Fang Yunpeng and Tang Songyan. Each has its own map and its own following.
Newer work maps the scalp with imaging. Dr Poney Chiang has presented MRI research correlating scalp points with functional areas of the cerebral cortex. His work proposes revised locations for some areas, including the arm and face.
Why Mixing Maps Makes Treatment Hard to Repeat
The systems start from different foundations. Jiao Scalp Acupuncture works from cortical function, through its functional areas. ZSA works from TCM diagnosis on a zone map built around the Du channel, informed by neuroanatomy. YNSA works from palpation of its own diagnostic areas, then chooses among its somatotopes and basic points. The standard lines work from location.
So the same patch of scalp can carry a different name, a different indication and a different needling method from one system to the next.
Suppose you take a zone from one map, the selection logic of another and the technique of a third. If the patient's function changes in the session, you can't tell which part made the difference, and you can't reliably do it again. Reassessment only teaches you something when the method stays constant.
This is a common experience for Acupuncturists who have learned scalp Acupuncture from books, videos and short courses in different traditions. Each piece was sound. They were never built to fit together.
Dr Scott Ling sees a version of this within ZSA alone. Many Acupuncturists who come to Basics have used the system from the book, sometimes for years, and come because they want to learn it properly and in order.
How to Choose
Start with how you already think in clinic. If you work from Zang Fu diagnosis, ZSA begins there. Acupuncturists who have trained with us in more than one scalp system said in a 2026 webinar that this starting point in Zang Fu, and ZSA's shorter needles, were among the first differences they noticed.
If palpation already drives your selection, YNSA's diagnostic system will feel familiar. If you think in terms of cortical function, the functional areas of Jiao Scalp Acupuncture follow that logic.
Then look at the training itself. Can you learn the whole system in order, from teachers in a direct lineage, with supervised hands-on practice and live patient demonstrations? Is there a path beyond the first course?
Finally, learn one system completely before adding a second. Many experienced Acupuncturists use more than one. They do it well once they can keep the maps apart.
Learning Zhu's Scalp Acupuncture
If ZSA fits the way you work, start with the Basics course. Dr Ru Shan Shy and Dr Sheng Chun Chang teach the full map, needling technique and Dao Yin over three days, with about 40% of each day hands-on, 16 live patient demonstrations and 19.5 CPD points or the local equivalent.