Curcumin plays a protective role in brain injury through its anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Moreover, peroxiredoxin-5 exerts a protective effect against oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to investigate whether curcumin modulated the peroxiredoxin-5 expression in focal cerebral ischemic animal model. Middle cerebral artery occlusion(MCAO) was performed to induce cerebral ischemic injury in rats. Adult male rats were injected intraperitoneally with vehicle or curcumin(50㎎/㎏ B.W.) 1 h after MCAO and cerebral cortex tissues were collected 24 h after MCAO. Photographs of hematoxylin and eosin staining showed that MCAO induced necrotic changes with scalloped shrunken form and apoptotic changes with nuclear chromatin condensations. However, curcumin treatment attenuated MCAO-induced histopathological changes. Moreover, this study clearly showed that peroxiredoxin-5 expression was decreased in MCAO operated animal with vehicle using a proteomics approach. However, this decrease in peroxiredoxin-5 expression was attenuated by curcumin treatment. Reverse-transcription PCR and Western blot analyses confirmed that curcumin treatment alleviated the MCAO injury-induced decrease in peroxiredoxin-5 expression(p<0.05). These results demonstrated that curcumin regulates peroxiredoxin-5 expression in MCAO animal model. In conclusion, our findings suggest that curcumin exerts a neuroprotective effect in cerebral ischemia by attenuating the MCAO-induced decrease in peroxiredoxin-5 expression.