The involvement of arginine vasotocin in the maturation of the kitten brain.

In order to investigate the effects of the nonapeptide hormone arginine vasotocin (AVT) on the maturation of the brain, the following developmental data were tabulated between 5 and 21 days of postnatal life, in kittens, after the daily intraperitoneal administration of 10(-6) mg synthetic AVT: sleep, daily increase of body weight and locomotor, and investigative activities (LIA). Likewise, the day of the eye opening was noted and the brain weight as well as the total lipid levels within the brain in the day of sacrifice (21 days of age) were measured. The daily administration of AVT induced: (1) an increase of the total amount as well as of the intensity of active sleep (AS); (2) a decrease of the LIA; (3) a decrease of the total lipid levels within the brain and (4) a retardation of the eye opening. These effects appeared to be specific because neither arginine vasopressin, nor oxytocin, in the same doses (10(-6) mg), were able to reproduce the effects of AVT. The present results demonstrate that chronic administration of AVT is associated with a retardation of brain maturation. Whether AVT induces this effect by an unique mechanism or there are different mechanisms for the reported developmental data that were affected by AVT, is unknown. However, the present results suggest that the pineal gland, by its effector within the brain. AVT, is involved by an inhibitory pathway in the brain maturation and the hypothesis is advanced that the decrease of AVT content of fetal and neonatal brain could represent a hormonal signal for triggering the beginning of the brain maturation phenomena.