Most interestingly, a study using LCN2-null mice showed these animals exhibit anxiety- and depressive-like behavior and cognitive impairments in spatial learning tasks that correlated with increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity and morphological alterations within the hippocampus, specifically, an atrophy of the dorsal hippocampus – which is involved in memory and cognition – and a hypertrophy of the ventral region – which plays a role in emotion. This evidence concerns the gene LCN2 and Anxiety.