MTOR and ischemic stroke: As shown in Figure 4A, to investigate the effect of EA intervention on the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway following an ischemic stroke, Western blotting was performed to examine the expression levels of PI3K, Atg7, total-mTOR (t-mTOR), phosphorylated-mTOR (P-mTOR), total-AKT (t-AKT) and phosphorylated-AKT (P-AKT) in the ischemic cerebral hippocampus.