BECN1 and Cerebral ischemia: Zheng et al. (2009) applied the ribonucleic acid (RNA) interference technique to the rat model of cerebral ischemia to down-regulate the expression of Beclin-1 in the ischemic brain and inhibit mitochondrial autophagy and noted that it can alleviate cerebral ischemic injury, inhibit neuronal apoptosis in cortex and striatum, and improve the symptoms of neurological impairment.