MMP9 and ischemic stroke: In keeping with the experimental literature, studies of clinical stroke patients have revealed increased levels of MMP-9 following ischemic stroke in humans (Anthony et al., 1997; Montaner et al., 2003b; Ning et al., 2006; Rosell et al., 2008) with elevated MMP-9 levels observed compared to healthy controls (Lucivero et al., 2007).