Objective To investigate the neuroprotective effect of miR-181c on hypoxia-preconditioned ischemia in rats and its mechanism.Methods Thirty-nine male SD rats were randomly divided into 5 groups of control group,sham-operated group,middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO)group,hypoxia-preconditioned group,hypoxia-preconditioned and MCAO group.Infarct volume and behavioral deficits were quantified.Real-time PCR was applied to detect the expression levels of miR-181c and Western blotting was used to verify the target protein of mt-cox1.Results Under the treatment of hypoxia-preconditioned,the neurological impairment was alleviated and the infarct volume was reduced significantly from 22.50％ ±2.96％ to 16.40％ ±3.13 ％ (t =5.26,P ＜0.01).The expression of miR-181c was decreased significantly in hypoxia-preconditioned and MCAO group than that in MCAO group (1.89 ± 0.14 vs 3.05 ± 0.26,t =6.10,P ＜ 0.01),and the expression of mt-cox1 protein was also significantly decreased (0.54 ± 0.07 vs 0.93 ± 0.04,t =8.01,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion Hypoxia-preconditioned may attenuate the ischemic injury in SD rats,which may be related to the down-regulation of the expression of miR-181c,therefore increasing the expression of its targeted protein mt-cox1.