Our results are in agreement with the previously reported effect of tBHQ in ischemic stroke (Shih et al., 2005) and cardiac dysfunction (Zhang et al., 2015) and support the use of Nrf2 activators as potential therapy for diabetic complications (Xue et al., 2008; Jiang et al., 2010; Tan and de Haan, 2014; Tan et al., 2014). Here, NFE2L2 is linked to ischemic stroke.