Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability in the U.S. and is now recognized as a global epidemic. There are currently no FDA-approved drugs to block the cell death that results from oxygen and glucose deprivation. This void in clinical medicine has sparked an intense interest in understanding endogenous cellular protective pathways that might be exploited for therapeutic development. The work highlighted here describes the critical role between redox tone and energetic stress signaling in mediating mitophagy and determining neuronal cell fate following acute oxygen glucose deprivation.