In adult models of global hypoxia, focal cerebral ischemia and brain trauma, increased BBB leakage was associated with acute up-regulation of VEGF (Nag et al., 1997; Zhang et al., 2000, 2002b; Schoch et al., 2002; Kaur et al., 2006b), and the increased expression of VEGF in astrocytes is suggested to contribute to this BBB leakage (Schmid-Brunclik et al., 2008). Here, VEGFA is linked to brain ischemia.