Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is a neuroprotective cytokine that is necessary for the normal development of astrocytes. Oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) can induce astrocyte proliferation by increasing hypoxia-inducible factor alpha (HIF-1alpha) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Here, we studied whether LIF affects the proliferation of cultured primary rat astrocytes under OGD conditions by measuring EdU incorporation into astrocyte DNA and the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) mRNA and protein. Our findings show that low concentrations of LIF (5 and 10 ng/mL) significantly decreased EdU incorporation and downregulated the expression of PCNA mRNA and PCNA protein in astrocytes subjected to OGD. A low concentration of LIF (10 ng/mL) clearly inhibited astrocyte proliferation induced by OGD, while a higher concentration (50 ng/mL) had no effect. To investigate the mechanism of this inhibition by LIF (10 ng/mL), the expression of 3 related genes (LIF receptor, HIF-1alpha, and VEGF) was assessed using real-time PCR; VEGF protein expression was measured by Western blot. Our results indicate that LIFR mRNA was downregulated in astrocytes subjected to OGD. Interestingly, treatment with LIF further reduced LIFR mRNA expression in these cells. LIF treatment also decreased the expression of HIF-1alpha mRNA, VEGF mRNA, and VEGF protein induced by OGD. Low concentrations of LIF were observed to inhibit astrocyte proliferation induced by OGD.