Remarkably, selective activation of mPFC astrocytes by Gq-DREADDS ameliorated the altered rates of animal despair (from 83.68 ± 7.44 s in Cort-mice to 24.33 ± 8.45 s in Cort-GFAP-DREADDs mice, n = 15 vs n = 9, respectively; One Way ANOVA, Tukey test; P < 0.001) and anxiety levels found in Cort-mice (from 0.04 ± 0.01 to 0.28 ± 0.08; One Way ANOVA, Dunn ́s method; P = 0.003) (Fig. 5d–f). This evidence concerns the gene CORT and Anxiety.