Several permanent cerebral ischemia studies showed that, at 24 h after pMCAO, the protein expression levels of Nrf2 (total and nuclear) and its target antioxidant genes HO1 and SOD were upregulated in the ischemic cortex of mice or rats (Chang et al., 2013; Zhang J. et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2014). This evidence concerns the gene NFE2L2 and brain ischemia.