STAT3 and brain infarction: Indeed, previous studies have documented that STAT3 activation occurs in neurons, astrocytes and microglia/macrophages after focal cerebral infarction (Justicia et al., 2000; Suzuki et al., 2001; Amantea et al., 2011) and may provide beneficial effects through a variety of mechanisms (Jung et al., 2011; Gertz et al., 2012; Hoffmann et al., 2015).