Neuronal excitatory injury can induce mitochondrial autophagy during cerebral ischemia (Borsello et al., 2003; Shacka et al., 2007), which might occur via up-regulation of the expression of p53 and damage regulatory autophagy modulator DRAM(an autophagy regulator), and in turn, modulating autophagy by influencing Beclin-1 and LC3 (Rami et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2009; Poluzzi et al., 2014; Maejima et al., 2016). The gene discussed is BECN1; the disease is brain ischemia.