Finally, our analysis of post-mortem tissues from subjects who suffered two independent ischemic stroke events, as well as the examination of panel of 10 different stroke areas of various ages (i.e. time after stroke onset) suggested that the presence of active caspase-8 and -3 in CD68-positive cells correlates with the age of ischemic area. The gene discussed is CASP8; the disease is ischemic stroke.