ACTB and Stroke: As recommended by Vandesompele et al., CT values were normalized to three housekeeping genes (Vandesompele et al., 2002), β-actin, hmbs, and ywhaz, which were selected from a panel of the 17 most commonly used housekeeping genes in the stroke field based on their stable expression when comparing age matched male Wistar rats and ipsilateral MCAO tissue (see Methods).