Currently, ischemic stroke remains one of the most costly and devas-tating clinical syndromes, accounting for 9% of all deaths and being the second leading cause of death in the world (Davidson et al., 2018). Approximately 20% of strokes are caused by intracerebral hemorrhage, while the other ~80% are classified as ischemic. With the discovery of thrombolysis, reperfusion therapy became an option for the treatment of ischemic stroke. More recently, endovascular recanalization with mechanical thrombectomy has brought about a paradigm shift in the optimal management of patients with large vessel occlusion. Important-ly, early reperfusion is the only therapy that is proven to limit infarct size in patients with acute ischemic stroke. However, despite a success-ful recanalization being achieved in more than 70% of patients treated with mechanical thrombectomy +/– intravenous tissue recombinant plasminogen activator, functional independence (modified Rankin score 0–2 at 3 months after ischemic stroke) is obtained only in ~45% of cases. This reveals the further need to develop new adjunctive neuro-protective treatment strategies alongside reperfusion therapy.