The present study was performed to elucidate whether mesotocin (MT), one of avian neurohypophysial hormones, relates to the action of arginine vasotocin (AVT) on oviposition of hens. The ratio of AVT-induced oviposition was increased when 1 microg/hen of MT was injected together with AVT. An intravenous injection of 1 microg/hen of MT caused an increase in the binding affinity of the uterine AV...

Attribute Value Taxonomies (AVT) have been shown to be useful in constructing compact and robust classifiers. However, in many application domains, human-designed AVTs are unavailable. For this problem, we introduce AVT-Learner, an algorithm for automated construction of attribute value taxonomies from data. AVT-Learner uses Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering (HAC) to cluster attribute value...

Neuropeptides have widespread modulatory effects on behaviour and physiology and are associated with phenotypic transitions in a variety of animals. Arginine vasotocin (AVT) is implicated in mediating alternative male phenotypes in teleost fish, but the direction of the association differs among species, with either higher or lower AVT related to more territorial behaviour in different fishes. ...

The neuropeptide arginine vasotocin (AVT) influences vocalizations in some anuran amphibians but it is unknown whether AVT alters all vocal behaviors of a species similarly. We first characterized the vocal repertoire of male gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor). Three different call types were distinguished by unique sets of temporal and spectral features. Second, we examined the effects of AVT on...

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. ...