Objective To study the effect of atorvastatin pretreatment and ischemia preconditioning on I/R injury in rats .Methods Thirty‐two Wistar rats were randomly divided into sham opera‐tion group ,I/R injury group ,ischemia preconditioning group ,and atorvastatin treatment group (8 in each group) .A reversible focal I/R injury model of rats was established by Longa occlusion of middle cerebral artery .Cerebral tissue samples w ere taken ,cut into 3 μm‐thick sections w hich were stained with HE to observe the morphologic changes in frontal lobe ,parietal lobe and hipp‐ocampal CA1 .Results The karyopyknosis in frontal lobe and cytoplasm acid degeneration in hip‐pocampal CA1 were more significantly in I/R injury group than in sham operation group ,ischemia preconditioning group and atorvastatin treatment group (P<0 .01) .Conclusion ischemia precon‐ditioning and atorvastatin pretreatment can protect rats against I/R injury .