Disruption of the mother-infant relationship by means of 3 or 6 h of maternal separation leads to increased anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors (Huot et al., 2001) and reduces NPY-immunoreactivity (ir; Husum and Mathé, 2002) and hippocampal levels (Jiménez-Vasquez et al., 2001). The gene discussed is NPY; the disease is Anxiety.