Experiments on rats showed that long-term excess sodium chloride feeding increased the loss of animals as a result of the common carotid artery ligation. The effect is related to maximum decrease in the local cerebral blood flow and sharply pronounced brain swelling. The sodium chloride substitute giposol reduced the extent of cerebral ischemia and produced antiswelling effect. On the background of the hyper-sodium-chloride diet, the protective action of cerebrolysine was less pronounced as manifested by decreasing survival of the test animals. In contrast, the administration of giposol increased the efficacy of cerebrolysine with respect to the carotid artery occlusion.