Oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) can profoundly affect animal physiology and behavior. Over the past 20 years, the genes that encode OT and VP, as well as their respective receptors, have been identified and intensively studied leading to a greater understanding of the hormones’ functions. The use of transgenic animals, including knockout mice, and viral vectors have opened new vistas of rese...

Previous studies demonstrated the presence of oxytocin (OT) and oxytocin receptors (OTRs) in the heart. The present work provides results supporting a potential role of OT in cardiomyogenesis. Here, we show a maximal OT and OTR protein level in the developing rat heart at day 21 of gestation and postnatal days 1-4, when cardiac myocytes are at a stage of intense hyperplasia. Between postnatal d...

Song Z, Levin BE, Stevens W, Sladek CD. Supraoptic oxytocin and vasopressin neurons function as glucose and metabolic sensors. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 306: R447–R456, 2014. First published January 29, 2014; doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00520.2013.— Neurons in the supraoptic nuclei (SON) produce oxytocin and vasopressin and express insulin receptors (InsR) and glucokinase. Since oxytocin i...

Two anti-neurophysin monoclonal antibodies (MABs), PS 36 and PS 41, described in the preceding paper (Ben-Barak, Y, J.T. Russell, M.H. Whitnall, K. Ozato, and H. Gainer (1985) J. Neurosci. 5:000-000), allowed us to specifically stain for oxytocin-associated neurophysin (NP-OT) or vasopressin-associated neurophysin (NP-AVP) in the hypothalamus of developing rats. Staining with these MABs specifi...

Cardiac preconditioning represents the most potent and consistently reproducible method of rescuing heart tissue from undergoing irreversible ischemic damage. One of the major goals of the current cardiovascular research is to identify a reliable cardioprotective intervention that can salvage ischemic myocardium. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the oxytocin (OT)-induced cardioprotec...

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) acts on a widespread network of brain regions to regulate numerous behavioral adaptations during the postpartum period including maternal care, maternal aggression, and anxiety. In the present study, we examined whether this network also includes the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). We found that bilateral infusion of a highly specific oxytocin receptor antagonist...

Background: Oxytocin (OT) is a paracrine hormone with various biological activities and many sex organs in both sexes, as well as many tumor cells have shown to have related receptors. In this study the development of a receptor imaging tracer for possible tumor imaging has been described. Materials and Methods: OT was successively labeled with [67Ga]-gallium chloride after conjugation with fre...

BACKGROUND The molecular components determining the timing for birth remain an incompletely characterized aspect of reproduction, with important conceptual and therapeutic ramifications for management of preterm, post-term and arrested labor. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS To test the hypothesis that oxytocin mediates circadian regulation of birth, we evaluated parturition timing following sh...

Oxytocin (OT) modulates adult mammalian sexual behavior, sperm production and transport, and steroidogenesis; however, the consequences of developmental manipulations of oxytocin have received little attention. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether neonatal exposure to OT, an oxytocin antagonist (OTA), saline (SAL), or handling (HAN)-only would have long-term effects on reprod...

Oxytocin (OT) is involved in the stimulation of secretion of anterior pituitary hormones in females during the periovulatory and periparturient periods. In the present study we examined the role of OT in control of ACTH, beta-endorphin, LH and PRL secretion in vitro from dispersed anterior pituitary cells collected from gilts during the luteal (Days 10-12; n=6) and follicular (Days 18-20; n=5) ...