This review summarizes the existing literature on the effects of oxytocin administration in the treatment of obesity in different animal models and in humans, focusing on the central control of food intake, the oxytocin effects on adipose tissue, and the relationships between oxytocin and leptin. Oxytocin is a hypothalamic nonapeptide synthesized mainly in the paraventricular and supraoptic nuc...

Emerging research raises questions that synthetic oxytocin during childbirth may alter the endogenous oxytocin system and influence maternal stress, mood, and behavior. Endogenous oxytocin is a key component in the transition to motherhood, affecting molecular pathways that buffer stress reactivity, support positive mood, and regulate healthy mothering behaviors (including lactation). Synthetic...

Background: Uterine stimulants are medications used to induce/augment labor, induce abortion, and prevent postpartum hemorrhage. Currently, available drugs carrying adverse effects, hence the present study is designed effect of Carica papaya raw fruits extract in comparison with oxytocin using vitro rat uterus preparations. Aims Objectives: Primary secondary aims were evaluate uterine stimulant...

Oxytocin is a posterior pituitary hormone with important physiological functions. Oxytocin has traditionally important biological functions in regulating the uterine smooth muscle activity and milk ejection during lactation. This study was conducted on albino Wistar female rats to evaluate the effect of oxytocin on carbachol induced lacrimation. Groups of animals (n=7) were injected with oxytoc...

The major milk fraction stored in the bovine udder, the alveolar milk, is not available for milk removal before being actively shifted to the cisternal cavities by the milk ejection reflex (Knight et al. 1994; Pfeilsticker et al. 1996). Tactile teat stimulation, provided by the liner throughout milking, causes continuous release of oxytocin from the neuropituitary into the blood circulation, wh...

Oxytocin has been shown to affect human social information processing including recognition memory for faces. Here we investigated the neural processes underlying the effect of oxytocin on memorizing own-race and other-race faces in men and women. In a placebo-controlled, double-blind, between-subject study, participants received either oxytocin or placebo before studying own-race and other-rac...

The role of oxytocin in parturition is controversial. When considered as an endocrine hormone, the balance of evidence suggests that oxytocin has little involvement in the initiation of labour. However, recent research has demonstrated synthesis of mRNA encoding oxytocin within the pregnant human uterus. This article reviews the hypothesis that oxytocin is an important paracrine (or autocrine) ...

Mouse models of neuropsychiatric diseases provide a platform for mechanistic understanding and development of new therapies. We previously demonstrated that knockout of the mouse homolog of CNTNAP2 (contactin-associated protein-like 2), in which mutations cause cortical dysplasia and focal epilepsy (CDFE) syndrome, displays many features that parallel those of the human disorder. Because CDFE h...

More than 90 percent of the cells isolated from the mammary gland of lactating rats with 0.1 percent collagenase were viable by dye exclusion. Myoepithelial cells comprised about one-third of the mammary cells and appeared to be morphologically intact in electron micrographs. [(3)H]Oxytocin-binding activity was localized in an enriched myoepitheial cell fraction obtained by density gradient cen...

Estradiol-17beta administration to young (10- to 12-week-old) rabbits to produce the "estrogen-dominated" uterus increased the uterine contractile response to both oxytocin and methacholine in vitro. In "progesterone-dominated" uteri, obtained from rabbits that received progesterone for 4 days after estrogen pretreatment, the contractile response to oxytocin in vitro was selectively abolished; ...