Earlier reports on the beneficial role of exogenous IL-4 application within the CNS (Butti et al., 2008; Fenn et al., 2014) as well as the upregulation of brain-endogenous IL-4 after stroke (Zhao et al., 2015) led to the notion that this immune cytokine may serve neuroprotective or repair-related activities. The gene discussed is IL4; the disease is stroke disorder.