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Oxytocin: Brain
built 605 days ago
Oxytocin may ... facilitate bonding of young to their mother by promoting pup attachment to the nipple. Oxytocin is very concentrated in the milk of lactating rats. Washing the belly of a rat mother removes an important olfactory cue for pup attachment. Topical oxytocin administration on the mother has been reported to re-instate nipple attachment within minutes, even in the absence of milk ejection. It is known that more receptors for oxytocin are present in the fetal rat brain compared to the adult rat brain. Perhaps oxytocin from the mother is triggering affiliative behavior in pups by binding to olfactory areas of the brain, thus setting off a signaling cascade to stimulate feeding.
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Oxytocin suppresses the activity of the brain region known as the amygdala, the area that processes fear and communicates it to the rest of the brain. A small sample group of 15 men inhaled either oxytocin or a placebo before performing a task in which they sorted pictures of angry or fearful faces and threatening scenes. During the test, the researchers monitored the subjects' brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging and found that the oxytocin group indeed had reduced activity in the amygdala.
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Oxytocin may be directly or indirectly involved in prolactin release during proestrus in the rat, but this may not be the case in prolactin release caused by suckling or milking (Johnston and Negro-Vilar, 1988, Endocrinology 122:341). The interaction between oxytocin (or oxytocenergic neurons in the hypothalamus and brain) and prolactin release from the pituitary remains an area of investigation (see ... Mori et al., 1990, Endocrinology 125:1009).
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Oxytocin secreted from the pituitary gland cannot re-enter the brain because of the blood-brain barrier. Instead, the behavioral effects of oxytocin are thought to reflect release from centrally projecting oxytocin neurons, different from those that project to the pituitary gland. Oxytocin receptors are expressed by neurons in many parts of the brain and spinal cord, including the amygdala, ventromedial hypothalamus, septum and brainstem.
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Oxytocin-containing neurons from the paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei go to other brain regions which are involved in autonomic regulation (such as cardiovascular effects). In these cases, oxytocin is acting as a neurotransmitter.
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Template:Drugbox Synthetic OXT is sold as medication under the trade names Pitocin and Syntocinon and ... as generic Oxytocin. OXT is destroyed in the gastrointestinal tract, and therefore must be administered by injection or as nasal spray. OXT has a half-life of typically about three minutes in the blood. OXT given intravenously does not enter the brain in significant quantities - it is excluded from the brain by the blood-brain barrier. Drugs administered by nasal spray are thought to have better access to the CNS. An OXT nasal spray has been used to stimulate breastfeeding but, as noted above, there is no good evidence that it reaches the CNSin significant quantities.
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