Extreme anxiety-like behavior and pronounced responsiveness to the anxiolytic effects of benzodiazepines are characteristic features of genetically selected HAB (high anxiety-like behavior) rats which can be regarded as modeling aspects of human anxiety disorders. Here, we analyze expression profiles from prefrontal and parietal cortex of naïve HAB rats and controls. The regions were chosen based on our recent findings demonstrating a strong differential pharmacological MRI (phMRI) response to diazepam between HAB rats and their genetic counterpart strain (LAB) in the medial prefrontal/anterior cingulatecortex (Kalisch et al, SFN 2001). Inbred HAB and LAB rats (n=9/group), characterized for their anxiety-like behavior on the elevated plus maze, were sacrificed and total RNA from cingulate and parietal cortex was prepared, pooled in groups of 3 individuals and hybridized to Affymetrix Rat Neurobiology Chip (U34) which contains probe sets for about 1200 genes. Strain and regional effects were analyzed. Selec...