CASP3 and brain ischemia: Immunohistochemistry of Caspase-3 was used to detect the apoptosis of neurons in the brain, and the results showed that cerebral ischemia significantly increased the number of Caspase-3 labeled neurons, while DEX notably inhibited the number of Caspase-3 positive cells, and the inhibitory effect was more remarkable with the increase of DEX concentration (Fig. 1b).