Elsevier

Neuroscience

Volume 139, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 843-851
Neuroscience

Behavioural neuroscience
Vasopressin interactions with oxytocin in the control of female sexual behavior

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2006.01.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous studies have found that central administration of arginine vasopressin and arginine vasopressin receptor V1a antagonists respectively inhibited and stimulated receptivity but did not examine effects on other aspects of female sexual behavior. Central oxytocin facilitates both proceptive and receptive components of sexual behavior and diminishes male-directed agonistic behavior. The present study examined i.c.v.-administered arginine vasopressin and V1a antagonist effects on proceptive, receptive and agonistic behaviors, and interactions with oxytocin. In experiment 1, rats were primed s.c. with 2 μg estradiol benzoate ×2 days and with 500 μg of progesterone on day 3. Arginine vasopressin (0.2, 0.4 μg) or normal saline vehicle was administered 5 h after progesterone treatment and sexual and agonistic behavior measured 30, 60 and 90 min later. Compared with saline, both doses of arginine vasopressin significantly decreased lordosis responses to mounting and hop-dart proceptive behavior and trended toward significantly increasing agonistic behaviors. In experiment 2, oxytocin (2 μg) infusion just after arginine vasopressin (0.4 μg) significantly increased lordoses and decreased agonistic behaviors but did not affect hopping and darting. In experiment 3, conducted in ovariectomized rats primed with estradiol benzoate (1 μg/day s.c.×2 days), i.c.v. infusion of 0.5 and 1.0 μg of the selective V1a antagonist, d(CH2)5Tyr-(Me)arginine vasopressin on day 3 significantly increased lordoses and trended toward increasing hopping and darting 4 and 6 h after i.c.v. treatment. In experiment 4, 1 μg of the selective oxytocin antagonist, d(CH2)5[Tyr(Me)2, Thr4, Tyr-NH29]OVT given 1 h before d(CH2)5Tyr-(Me)arginine vasopressin (1 μg) significantly decreased lordoses. Previous studies indicate that arginine vasopressin contributes to light phase inhibition of female sexual behavior. Our findings suggest that arginine vasopressin may exert this effect through interactions that decrease oxytocin stimulation of sexual behavior and raise the question whether sex steroid conditions that stimulate sexual behavior may suppress central arginine vasopressin and V1a receptor activity.

Section snippets

Experimental procedures

All experiments were conducted in accordance with NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the University of North Carolina School of Medicine Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. All efforts were made to minimize the numbers of animals used and their suffering.

Results

In experiment 1, there was a highly significant treatment by time interaction for LQs (F(4/52)=7.94, P<0.001, Fig. 1a) but not for HD or agonistic behaviors. In post hoc Bonferroni tests, LQs were overall significantly lower in the 0.4 μg AVP compared with the NS treatment group (P=0.001) but not significantly different in the 0.2 μg AVP group. LQs were significantly lower 60 min after i.c.v. infusion of 0.4 μg AVP (t(23)=7.74, P<0.001) and 90 min after infusion of 0.2 μg and 0.4 μg of AVP (t

Discussion

In these experiments, we found that i.c.v.-administered AVP exerted rapid dose-related inhibitory effects on receptive and proceptive components of female sexual behavior and i.c.v.-administered V1aA had a more delayed facilitating effect on receptivity and an inhibiting effect on male-directed agonistic behavior. OT administration shortly after AVP prevented the decline in receptivity and diminished agonistic behavior while pretreatment with OTA blocked V1aA facilitation of receptivity. The

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by MH56157 awarded to C.A.P. We wish to also acknowledge the excellent technical assistance of Blanche Edwards.

References (30)

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