To directly compare qRT-PCR results in male and female rats from the same litter, results described for male subjects were re-analyzed from previously published data (Szutorisz et al., 2014) and combined with that from female littermates that derived from the same breeding cohort. Processing and qPCR analysis of all male and female brain samples were done simultaneously. Notably, the expression level of the reference gene was not different in males and females. In the adolescent male and female sample (N=5/treatment/sex), all subjects were derived from a different birth litter; in the adult sample (N=7-8/ treatment/sex) no more than two littermates per group were included in the experiment. No litter effects were found in the statistical analyses. None of the animals used for gene expression analyses underwent any behavioral testing or treatment, only handling.
