Acupuncture has been widely used to treat stroke in China.However,the possible mechanisms underlying are still unclear.In the past few years,we have focused our attention on the effects of electroacupunctrue (EA) against acute cerebral ischemia and observed that EA application could abate the ischemia-induced infarction and edema in rats.Microarray,RT-PCR and western blot techniques also suggested that several genes and proteins expression are regulated during or after EA performance.Our recent work has shown that delta-opioid receptor (DOR) is neuroprotective against oxygen/glucose deprivation-induced injury in primary cultural cortical neurons.As we know,most studies indicated that EA can activate the endogenous opioid system during EA analgesia,here we asked whether DOR is activated and involved during EA anti-ischemia.