AIM: To study influence of Valeriana officinalis var. latifolia(VOL) on expression of C-Fos, C-Jun after focal cerebral ischemia. METHODs: Inducing rat model of reversible middle cerebral artery occlusion(MCAO) using Koizumi s intraluminal suture occlusion method. 48 male rats were divided into 5 groups randomly, pseudo-operation group, MCAO group, saline control group, VOL group. 2 hours after MCAO, we took gastric gavage with VOL and saline, 8 hour per time, and took out of brain to test C-Fos, C-Jun expression immunohistochemically at the 5th day after oper-ation. RESULTS: There was no positive cell in each hippocampus zone of ormal group; we observed C-Fos, C-Jun positive cells in each Hip-pocampus zone after MCAO; Density of C-Fos, C-Jun positive cells of VOL group were apparently lower than that of simple ischemia group. CON CLUSION: VOL can relieve histopathological lesions after cerebral is-chemia and promote protection function of rat through inhibiting the ex-pression of C-Fos, C-Jun expression.