When applied to animal stroke models, several Chinese herbal medicines reduce cerebral infarction, inhibit autophagy and cell apoptosis, improve long-term neurological recovery through similar or identical pathways; the downstream substrates mainly include mTOR, glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3), nuclear factor kappa light chain enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB), Nrf2, NOS, cyclic AMP-responsive element binding protein (CREB), etc. The gene discussed is NFKB1; the disease is cerebral infarction.