The neuropeptide arginine vasotocin (AVT: the avian homolog of vasopressin) has numerous functional roles including mediating social behaviors, coregulating the adrenocortical stress response and maintaining water balance. These functions of AVT make it susceptible to environmental influence, yet little is understood concerning the variation in the AVT system across habitats. In this study, AVT...

The intestine of marine fish plays a crucial role in ion homeostasis by selective processing of ingested fluid. Although arginine vasotocin (AVT) is suggested to play a role in ion regulation in fish, its action in the intestine has not been demonstrated. Thus, the present study investigated in vitro the putative role of AVT in intestinal ion transport in the sea bream (Sparus aurata). A cDNA e...

AVT (Attribute Value Tree) can be considered a generalization of AVM (Attribute Value Matrix) used in many Feature Structured Unification grammars (FSUG). In this paper we give some properties of the AVT like: paths in an AVT, exclusive combinations in an AVT, logical interpretation of an AVT, well formed AVT, the equivalence of the AVTs, the ordered AVTs, the AVTs intersection, the AVTs differ...

Arginine vasotocin (AVT) is a potent regulator of social behavior in many species, but little is known about its role in reptilian behavior. Here we examine the effect of exogenous AVT on aggressive responding and courtship behavior in the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis). Aggressive behavior was stimulated in two ways: (1) mirror presentation (no relative status formed) and (2) size-ma...

In cricket frogs, Acris crepitans, sexually active males can switch between calling and noncalling (satellite) mating strategies and injections of the neuropeptide arginine vasotocin (AVT) stimulate calling behavior. We report here that this behavioral variation of animals under field conditions is associated with variations in AVT-immunoreactive (AVT-ir) staining in distinct brain nuclei. In b...

Arginine vasotocin (AVT) and its mammalian homologue, arginine vasopressin (AVP), regulate a variety of social and reproductive behaviors, often with complex species-, sex- and context-dependent effects. Despite extensive evidence documenting seasonal variation in brain AVT/AVP, relatively few studies have investigated the environmental and/or hormonal factors mediating these seasonal changes. ...

Pupfishes in the Death Valley region have rapidly differentiated in social behaviors since their isolation in a series of desert streams, springs, and marshes less than 20,000 years ago. These habitats can show dramatic fluctuations in ecological conditions, and pupfish must cope with the changes by plastic physiological and behavioral responses. Recently, we showed differences among some Death...

Social behavior diversity is correlated with distinctively distributed patterns of a conserved brain network, which depend on the action of neuroendocrine messengers that integrate extrinsic and intrinsic cues. Arginine vasotocin (AVT) is a key integrator underlying differences in behavior across vertebrate taxa. Weakly electric fish use their electric organ discharges (EODs) as social behavior...