Objective In China, acupuncture has been used for treatment of depressive disorders, while the evaluations of therapeutic effects have been lack of experimental studies.Embedding catgut in acupoints (ECP) is an alternative method of acupuncture that continuously stimulates the acupoints via producing physiological and biochemical changes.Compared to hand-acupuncture or electro-acupuncture, ECP is more easily to perform in animals because which can be conducted under anesthetic.In the current study we investigated the effect of ECP on Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats, a genetic animal model for depressive disorders.Methods WKY rats were treated with ECP once per week at GV20 (Bai Hui), bilateral BL15 (Xin Shu), BL23 (Shen Shu), PC6 (Nei Guan), ST36 (Zu San Li) and SP6 (San Yin Jiao) under anesthetic.The depressive, anxiety-like and spatial learning behaviors were examined by behavior test battery including open field test, forced swim test, Morris water maze test, elevated plus maze test and light/dark transition test.Results Compared with sham ECP treatment, ECP treatment significantly increased total distance traveled and time stayed in the central area in open field test and the time spent in the target quadrant in Morris water maze test.Conclusions These findings indicate that ECP treatment can improve depressive, anxiety-like and spatial learning behaviors of WKY rats.