Leng Gareth, Onaka Tatsushi, Caquineau Celine, Sabatier Nancy, Tobin Vicky A, Takayanagi Yuki
Centre for Integrative Physiology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh UK and Jichi Medical University, Tochigi, Japan.
Prog Brain Res. 2008;170:137-51. doi: 10.1016/S0079-6123(08)00413-5.
Oxytocin has potent central effects on feeding behaviour, as well as on social and sexual behaviours, and one likely substrate for its anorectic effect is the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus. This nucleus expresses a high density of oxytocin receptors, but contains very few oxytocin-containing fibres, hence it is a likely target of 'neurohormonal' actions of oxytocin, including possibly oxytocin released from the dendrites of magnocellular oxytocin neurones. As oxytocin release from dendrites is regulated independent of electrical activity and of secretion from the neurohypophysis, exactly how this release is regulated by metabolic and reproduction-related signals remains to be established fully. Intriguingly though, it looks as though this central release of oxytocin from magnocellular neurons might be instrumental in a fundamental shift in motivational behaviour - switching behaviour from being driven by the need to find and consume food, to the need to reproduce.
催产素对进食行为以及社交和性行为具有强大的中枢作用，其厌食作用的一个可能底物是下丘脑腹内侧核。该核表达高密度的催产素受体，但含催产素的纤维极少，因此它可能是催产素“神经激素”作用的靶点，包括可能从大细胞催产素神经元的树突释放的催产素。由于从树突释放催产素的调节独立于电活动和神经垂体的分泌，这种释放如何受到代谢和生殖相关信号的调节仍有待充分确定。然而，有趣的是，大细胞神经元中催产素的这种中枢释放似乎可能有助于动机行为的根本转变——将行为从由寻找和消耗食物的需求驱动，转变为受繁殖需求驱动。
