Oxidative injury contributes to neuronal degeneration in many central nervous system (CNS) diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy and ischemia. Inducible heme oxygenase (HO)-1 acts against oxidants that are thought to play a role in the pathogenesis of these diseases. Lindenenyl acetate, isolated by bioassay-guided fractionation of the MeOH extract of the roots of Lindera strychnifolia, showed potent neuroprotective effects on glutamate-induced neurotoxicity by inducing the expression of HO-1 and increasing the activity of HO in mouse hippocampal HT22 cells. Furthermore, lindenenyl acetate caused the nuclear accumulation of nuclear factor-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and increased the promoter activity of antioxidant response elements (ARE) in mouse hippocampal HT22 cells. In addition, we found that treatment of the cells with extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) inhibitor (U0126) reduced lindenenyl acetate-induced HO-1 expression. Lindenenyl acetate also increased ERK phosphorylation. These results suggest that lindenenyl acetate increases cellular resistance to glutamate-induced oxidative injury in mouse hippocampal HT22 cells, presumably through the ERK pathway-Nrf2/ARE-dependent HO-1 expression.