The ANRIL overexpression has been reported to elevate VEGF levels and promote angiogenesis by activating the NF-κB signaling pathway in diabetes mellitus (DM) + cerebral infarction (CI) rats (Zhang et al., 2017), whereas ANRIL knockdown alleviates neuronal apoptosis in CI rats by inhibiting the NF-κB signaling pathway (Zhao et al., 2019). Here, VEGFA is linked to cerebral infarction.