Animal data have shown that inhibition of p38 MAPKα starting in the early period after stroke led to improvement in motor and somatosensory function (Alam et al., 2020), whereas others have reported that MAPK-1 signaling plays an endogenous protective role in stroke and its inhibition accelerated stroke-induced injury via its anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory actions (Liu et al., 2014). The gene discussed is MAPK1; the disease is stroke disorder.