Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P01185 (vasopressin)
 23,126 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Early-life environmental events can induce profound long-lasting changes in several behavioral and neuroendocrine systems. The neonatal handling procedure, which involves repeated brief maternal separations followed by experimental manipulations, reduces stress responses and sexual behavior in adult rats. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of neonatal handling on social behaviors of male and female rats in adulthood, as manifest by the results of social memory and social interaction tests. The number of oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) neurons in the paraventricular (PVN) and supraoptic (SON) nuclei of hypothalamus were also analyzed. The results did not demonstrate impairment of social memory. Notwithstanding, handling did reduce social investigative interaction and increase aggressive behavior in males, but did not do so in females. Furthermore, in both males and females, handling was linked with reduced number of OT-neurons in the parvocellular region of the PVN, while no differences were detected in the magnocellular PVN or the SON. On the other hand, handled males exhibited increased number of VP-neurons in the magnocellular zone of the PVN. We may conclude that the repeated brief maternal separations can reduce affiliative social behavior in adult male rats. Moreover, the disruption of the mother-infant relationship caused by the handling procedure induced long-lasting morphological changes in critical neuroendocrine areas that are involved in social bonding in mammals.
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PMID:Effects of neonatal handling on social memory, social interaction, and number of oxytocin and vasopressin neurons in rats. 1932 45

Early life stress (child and adolescent abuse, neglect and trauma) induces robust alterations in emotional and social functioning resulting in enhanced risk for the development of psychopathologies such as mood and aggressive disorders. Here, an overview is given on recent findings in primate and rodent models of early life stress, demonstrating that chronic deprivation of early maternal care as well as chronic deprivation of early physical interactions with peers are profound risk factors for the development of inappropriate aggressive behaviors. Alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA), vasopressin and serotonin systems and their relevance for the regulation of aggression are discussed. Data suggest that social deprivation-induced inappropriate forms of aggression are associated with high or low HPA axis (re)activity and a generally lower functioning of the serotonin system in adulthood. Moreover, genetic and epigenetic modifications in HPA and serotonin systems influence the outcome of early life stress and may even moderate adverse effects of early social deprivation on aggression. A more comprehensive study of aggression, neuroendocrine, neurobiological and (epi)genetic correlates of early life stress using animal models is necessary to provide a better understanding of the invasive aggressive deficits observed in humans exposed to child maltreatment.
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PMID:Early life stress, the development of aggression and neuroendocrine and neurobiological correlates: what can we learn from animal models? 1934 63

Vasopressin facilitates aggression in adult hamsters. Whether this neuropeptide has a similar role in play fighting remains unknown. The goal of the present study was to identify whether vasopressin controls play fighting in juvenile golden hamsters as well. Juvenile male golden hamsters were tested for play fighting after microinjections of a vasopressin V1A-receptor antagonist, Manning compound, either 0, 9, or 90 microM, into the anterior hypothalamus. The treatment selectively inhibited offensive aspects of play fighting in experimental animals. Attack frequencies were significantly decreased by both doses of Manning compound. In addition, the high dose of the receptor antagonist increased attack latencies, decreased bite frequencies, and decreased the averaged number of attacks per contact bout. Together, these results show that vasopressin controls offensive behaviors throughout development from play fighting in juveniles to aggression in adults.
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PMID:Vasopressin facilitates play fighting in juvenile golden hamsters. 1941 25

It has been previously reported that vasopressin 1b receptor knockout (Avpr1b(-/-)) mice have reduced levels of aggressive behavior compared to wildtype littermates. However, as the background of the mice was always a mixture of 129/SvJ and C57BL/6, we wanted to determine if the phenotype persisted when our laboratory line was crossed with a wild-derived sub-species of house mice. To this end, we crossed our Avpr1b(-/-) mice with Mus musculus castaneus, one of the few sub-species that will breed with laboratory strains. Subsequent F(2) offspring were tested in a resident-intruder behavioral test to assess aggressive behavior. We found that even on this more "wild" background, Avpr1b(-/-) mice continued to demonstrate longer attack latencies and fewer attacks in a resident-intruder test than wildtype littermates. These findings are consistent with previous reports of reduced aggressive behavior in Avpr1b(-/-) mice and show that the deficit does persist on a different background strain. Further, these findings confirm the importance of the Avpr1b to normal displays of social forms of aggressive behavior.
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PMID:Persistence of reduced aggression in vasopressin 1b receptor knockout mice on a more "wild" background. 1941 66

The homologous neuropeptides vasotocin (VT) and vasopressin (VP) influence agonistic behaviours across many taxa, but peptide-behaviour relationships are complex and purportedly species-specific. Putative species-specific effects in songbirds are confounded with context, however, such that territorial species have been tested only in resident-intruder paradigms and gregarious species have been tested only in a mate competition paradigm. Using the territorial violet-eared waxbill (Estrildidae: Uraeginthus granatina), we now show that a V(1a) receptor antagonist reduces male aggression during mate competition (as in gregarious finches), but does not affect resident-intruder aggression in dominant males. However, the V(1a) antagonist disinhibits aggression in less aggressive (typically subordinate) males. These results are consistent with recent data on the activation of different VT cell groups during positive and negative social interactions. Thus, VT influences aggression similarly across territorial and gregarious species, but in context- and phenotype-specific ways that probably reflect the differential activation of discrete VT cell groups.
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PMID:Dynamic neuromodulation of aggression by vasotocin: influence of social context and social phenotype in territorial songbirds. 1949 76

Vertebrate animals exhibit a spectacular diversity of social behaviors, yet a variety of basic social behavior processes are essential to all species. These include social signaling; discrimination of conspecifics and sexual partners; appetitive and consummatory sexual behaviors; aggression and dominance behaviors; and parental behaviors (the latter with rare exceptions). These behaviors are of fundamental importance and are regulated by an evolutionarily conserved, core social behavior network (SBN) of the limbic forebrain and midbrain. The SBN encodes social information in a highly dynamic, distributed manner, such that behavior is most strongly linked to the pattern of neural activity across the SBN, not the activity of single loci. Thus, shifts in the relative weighting of activity across SBN nodes can conceivably produce almost limitless variation in behavior, including diversity across species (as weighting is modified through evolution), across behavioral contexts (as weights change temporally) and across behavioral phenotypes (as weighting is specified through heritable and developmental processes). Individual neural loci may also express diverse relationships to behavior, depending upon temporal variations in their functional connectivity to other brain regions ("neural context"). We here review the basic properties of the SBN and show how behavioral variation relates to functional connectivity of the network, and discuss ways in which neuroendocrine factors adjust network activity to produce behavioral diversity. In addition to the actions of steroid hormones on SBN state, we examine the temporally plastic and evolutionarily labile properties of the nonapeptides (the vasopressin- and oxytocin-like neuropeptides), and show how variations in nonapeptide signaling within the SBN serve to promote behavioral diversity across social contexts, seasons, phenotypes and species. Although this diversity is daunting in its complexity, the search for common "organizing principles" has become increasingly fruitful. We focus on multiple aspects of behavior, including sexual behavior, aggression and affiliation, and in each of these areas, we show how broadly relevant insights have been obtained through the examination of behavioral diversity in a wide range of vertebrate taxa.
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PMID:Dynamic limbic networks and social diversity in vertebrates: from neural context to neuromodulatory patterning. 1952 Jan 5

Vasopressin V1a receptors in the rat brain have been studied for their role in modulating aggression and anxiety. In the current study blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) functional MRI was used to test whether V1a receptors modulate neural processing in the maternal brain when dams are exposed to a male intruder. Primiparous females were given an intracerebroventricular (ICV) injection of vehicle or V1a receptor antagonist ([beta-Mercapto-beta,beta-cyclopentamethylenepropionyl(1), O-me-Tyr(2),Arg(8)]-Vasopressin, [corrected] 125 ng/10 microL) 90-120 min before imaging. During fMRI, awake dams were presented with a male intruder threat to pups using a specialized chamber that contained separate compartments for pups and a male intruder. Our results indicate that the number of activated voxels was reduced in the cortical amygdala with V1a receptor blockade, while an increase was observed in the anterior olfactory nucleus and other areas. Dams treated with V1a antagonist showed significantly greater BOLD responses in the anterior olfactory nucleus, infralimbic prefrontal cortex, gustatory cortex, somatosensory cortex, and substantia innominata when presented with a novel male intruder. BOLD responses were reduced in the cortical amygdala and ventromedial hypothalamus. The V1a receptor sensitive areas play roles in the processing of smell, taste and touch and emotional reactivity. Thus one interpretation of the present fMRI data is that vasopressin, acting through V1a receptors, may modulate sensory processing and perhaps coordinate this effect with changes in visceromotor activity during the initial stages of maternal aggressive motivation and/or anxiogenic responses.
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PMID:Central vasopressin V1a receptors modulate neural processing in mothers facing intruder threat to pups. 1957 40

After pair-bonding, male prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) display aggression toward novel females but not toward their female partner. Here we show that this selective aggression in pair-bonded male prairie voles is associated with increased release of vasopressin (AVP) in the anterior hypothalamus (AH). Pharmacological activation of AVP-V1a receptors (V1aR) in the AH induced selective aggression in sexually naive males, whereas V1aR blockade diminished selective aggression in pair-bonded males. Pair-bonded males also showed an increased density in V1aR binding in the AH compared to their sexually naive counterparts and overexpression of V1aR in the AH, by viral vector-mediated gene transfer, facilitated aggression toward novel females. These data demonstrate that AH-AVP is both necessary and sufficient in the regulation of selective aggression associated with pair-bonding. In the second part of this study, we examined the effects of amphetamine (AMPH) exposure on female-directed aggression and revealed the potential role of AH-AVP underlying this behavior. Repeated AMPH administration in sexually naive male prairie voles enhanced V1aR expression in the AH and induced aggression toward a familiar or unfamiliar female. In addition, this AMPH-induced aggression was blocked by intra-AH administration of a V1aR antagonist. Together, our data reveal a socioneurobiological mechanism, highlighting a critical role of AH-AVP in the regulation of aggression induced by pair-bonding or drug experience in socially monogamous male prairie voles.
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PMID:Anterior hypothalamic vasopressin regulates pair-bonding and drug-induced aggression in a monogamous rodent. 1985 80

The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is a nucleus of the forebrain highly sensitive to sex steroids and containing vasopressin neurons implicated in several social- and reproduction-related behaviours such as scent-marking, aggression, pair bonding and parental behaviour. Sexually dimorphic vasopressin expression in BNST neurons has been reported in almost all rodents, with the notable exception of the Syrian hamster. In this species, vasopressin expression is completely absent in the BNST. Because almost all Syrian hamsters used in research are derived from a very small breeding stock captured in 1930, we compared commercially available Syrian hamsters with a recently captured, wild-derived breeding stock. We checked for vasopressin expression using in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Vasopressin expression in BNST neurons was completely absent in both breeding stocks, confirming the absence of BNST vasopressin expression in Mesocricetus auratus and ruling out a breeding artefact. Because vasopressin expression in BNST neurons appears to be strictly dependent on circulating sex steroids, the absence of vasopressin expression in Syrian hamster BNST neurons might be due to an insensitivity of these neurons to sex steroids. BNST vasopressin neurons also express galanin. Although galanin expression in the BNST is not sexually dimorphic in the Syrian hamster, it appears to be regulated by sex steroids. In the Djungarian hamster, photoperiodically driven seasonal variations of circulating sex steroids result in a seasonal rhythm of galanin expression in BNST neurons. We analysed the sex steroid dependence of galanin expression in the Syrian hamster. Castration and short photoperiod-induced sexual quiescence both resulted in downregulation of galanin mRNA in cell bodies (BNST) and immunoreactivity in the fibres (lateral septum). Testosterone supplementation of short photoperiod-adapted animals was able to restore galanin expression. Thus Syrian hamster BNST neurons respond to circulating sex steroids and their seasonal variations as observed in other rodent species.
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PMID:The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in the Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus): absence of vasopressin expression in standard and wild-derived hamsters and galanin regulation by seasonal changes in circulating sex steroids. 1990 96

Arginine vasopressin (AVP) is critical in the regulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, a major component of the stress response. The vasopressin V1b receptor (V1bR) mediates the stimulatory effect of AVP on adrenocorticotropin release. Previous studies showed that AVP facilitates aggression while serotonin inhibits aggression by blocking the activity of the vasopressin system. To examine whether the interaction of the V1bR and serotonin in the central nervous system controls anxiety-related behavior, we investigated the effects of acute and chronic treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and with a serotonin noradrenalin reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) on V1bR knockout (KO) mice and on V1bR antagonist (SSR149415)-treated mice. The effects were evaluated in experiments using an elevated plus-maze (EPM) test and a hole-board (HB) test, well established tests for evaluating anxiety-like behavior. For both the V1bR KO mice and V1bR antagonist-treated mice, acute treatment with either SSRI or SNRI did not change the time spent on the EPM open arms or the number of head dips in the HB. Chronic treatment of V1bR KO mice with SSRI did not change the amount of time spent on the open arms, the number of head dips, or the number of rearings, while chronic treatment with SNRI significantly increased the time spent on the open arms and the number of head dips. These results suggest that the anti-anxiety action of 5-HT reuptake inhibitors might partly involve V1bR regulating the anxiety behaviors.
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PMID:Involvement of vasopressin V1b receptor in anti-anxiety action of SSRI and SNRI in mice. 1991 7


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