An in situ hybridization procedure was applied to quantify glucocorticoid receptor (GR) mRNAs in the hippocampus of rat brain. Hybridization was carried out using a radiolabeled antisense probe complementary to the rat liver GR gene. The specificity of the method was validated by showing: 1) a high cellular grain density in sections hybridized with an antisense but not a sense probe; 2) agreement between the experimental and theoretical temperature at which 50% of the hybrids melted, and 3) a high signal distribution of GR mRNA in the hippocampus, a region of brain known to preferentially concentrate steroid hormones. Within the hippocampus, however, subregional differences in hybridization densities were observed. Quantitative autoradiography indicated that the average neuronal silver grain number was highest in the pyramidal cell layers of CA2 and CA4 and lowest in those of CA1 and CA3. Also, there was a significant difference in the average grain number between all of the cell fields except for that between CA2 and CA4. These results show that contiguous but neuroanatomically distinct cell fields of the hippocampus express different levels of GR transcripts, and indicate that differential regulation of GR expression occurs in subpopulations of hippocampal neurons.