VEGFA and ischemic stroke: Similar to the proangiogenic effects of exercise alone (Hu et al., 2010; Matsuda et al., 2011; Zheng et al., 2011; Yang et al., 2012; Ma et al., 2013), EE delivered in the recovery period following ischemic stroke can stimulate angiogenesis throughout the brain and perilesional tissue through vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2), and astrocytic high-mobility group box-1/interleukin-6 (HMGB1/IL-6) signaling (Seo et al., 2013; Yu et al., 2014; Chen et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2017).