Erythropoietin has been shown to protect neurons from ischemic damage (Sakanaka et al., 1998; Malhotra et al., 2006; Ratilal et al., 2014), suppress neuronal apoptosis and necroptosis (Rabie and Marti, 2008; Mallet and Ryou, 2017) by attenuating cytokine production and inflammation (Villa et al., 2003), reduce astrocyte edema in stroke (Gunnarson et al., 2009), and promote brain angiogenesis after focal ischemia (Li et al., 2007). Here, EPO is linked to ischemia.