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Abstract: Enzymatic pretreatments of oat bran, using viscozyme L to enhance protein extraction, were investigated. To obtain the best possible combination of enzymatic pretreatment variables including viscozyme L concentration, incubation time, pH and incubation temperature for maximum protein extraction, modern optimization techniques were employed. The optimization procedure included two stages: creating a response surface model through regression on experimental data and then optimizing the model by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms. The optimum conditions of enzymatic pretreatment were: viscozyme L concentration, 30FBG/10g of oat bran; incubation time, 2.8h; pH 4.6; and incubation temperature, 44°C. Under such conditions, the predicted maximum protein extracted was 55.69%, which coincided with the experimental values. These results indicated that enzymatic pretreatment can improve protein extraction significantly and PSO algorithms were efficient approaches for optimizing the conditions of enzymatic pretreatment of oat bran. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]