2013). Another study reported that pharmacological inhibition of NHE‐1 by sabiporide prevented ischemia‐induced increase in blood–brain barrier (BBB) permeability by preventing disruption of tight junction proteins in vivo as well as in an endothelial cell culture model (Park et al. 2010). More recently, it was reported that astrocytic NHE‐1 contributes to neurovascular injury after ischemic stroke and knock‐out of NHE‐1 selectively in astrocytes reduces BBB permeability and reactive astrogliosis after stroke (Begum et al. 2018). This evidence concerns the gene SLC9A1 and ischemic stroke.