ESR2 and Anxiety: In contrast, basic research that has explored the role of E2 and phytoestrogens and their receptors suggests that ERB mediates the regulation of anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors in animal models in specific brain areas such as the hippocampus and amygdala [22,40,41,42,43,44,45], whereas ERα could mainly mediate peripheral effects such as in the uterus and mammary glands, among others [46].