Gene expression in amygdala as a function of differential trait anxiety levels in genetically heterogeneous NIH-HS rats

Spatial learning in the genetically heterogeneous NIH-HS rat stock and RLA-I/RHA-I rats: Revisiting the relationship with unconditioned and conditioned anxiety

“…Student's t tests (df = 1.30 to 37) between the high and low subgroups and p-values are shown. of tests/tasks measuring conditioned/unconditioned anxiety/fear, depressive-like and stress responses [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]42]. The present results are roughly in line with these previous phenotypic characterizations, as in most anxiety-related variables from the elevated zero-maze, conditioned freezing and the two-way avoidance task, NIH-HS rats display values that fall in between the scores of the RHA-I/RLA-I [8,13,14].…”

“…the less anxious the rat is). Such a conclusion is supported by correlational, regression and factorial analyses, as well as by comparisons between extreme (low vs high) anxious groups (see [7,9,[11][12][13]15,42]). 2) Unconditioned anxiety (as reflected by some of these variables from the elevated zero-maze) is associated with two-way avoidance acquisition (see also [7][8][9]15,42]).…”

“…That study demonstrated that the procedure used to generate the genetically heterogeneous stock had been successful, since for most traits related to consumption/effects of ethanol, NIH-HS rats fell approximately in the middle of the high and low values of the eight inbred progenitor strains [5,6]. The neurobehavioral characterization of NIH-HS rats carried out so far in our laboratory includes traits related to unconditioned and conditioned anxiety/fear, exploratory behavior and coping style, as well as hormonal sensitivity to stress and central gene expression [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. These studies have led to the conclusion that the genetically heterogeneous rat stock displays relatively elevated anxiety/fear (as shown by unlearned and learned anxiety tests/tasks) and enhanced hormonal responses to stress, as well as a predominantly reactive (i.e.…”

Genetic predisposition to high anxiety- and depression-like behavior coincides with diminished DNA methylation in the adult rat amygdala

“…Widespread transcript changes have been reported in the adult amygdala of animals exposed to unpredictable chronic mild stress [68], chronic restraint stress [69, 70], or maternal separation [71]. Gene expression differences have been found in the amygdala of mice and rats that naturally exhibit high versus low anxiety/depression-like behavior [69, 70, 72]. Data from these studies, coupled with our current findings, highlight complex molecular changes in the amygdala that likely contribute to individual differences in emotional behavior.…”

Incentive loss and hippocampal gene expression in inbred Roman high- (RHA-I) and Roman low- (RLA-I) avoidance rats

“…[1].). Some of the differentially-expressed genes found here could underlie the differences in reward-loss reactivity observed in Roman rats, which would further support the utility of microarray for analyzing differential gene expression as a function of divergent profiles in a given behavioral/psychological trait [92].…”