(A) Blot and quantified protein expression from LA tissue extracted from six naive rats. (B) A series of representative Western blots depicting proteins probed in tissue from six individual rats. Quantification of protein levels from randomly selected naive rats revealed significantly greater variance in expression of phospho-S133-CREB/CREB with respect to phospho-ERK/ERK (F-test, pCREB/CREB vs. BDNF/GAPDH, F = 10.558, P = 0.011; pCREB/CREB vs. pERK/ERK, F = 5.405, P = 0.044 and total CREB/GAPDH vs. ERK/GAPDH F = 6.197, P = 0.033). (C) Histogram depicting frequency distribution for pCREB/CREB in naive rats. Quantified band intensities were consistent with expected normal values (K–S test of normality, n = 12; K–S, P = 0.950). Error bars indicate ± SEM.