Centre for Integrative Physiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, UK.
Nature. 2010 Mar 18;464(7287):413-7. doi: 10.1038/nature08826. Epub 2010 Feb 24.
Many peptides, when released as chemical messengers within the brain, have powerful influences on complex behaviours. Most strikingly, vasopressin and oxytocin, once thought of as circulating hormones whose actions were confined to peripheral organs, are now known to be released in the brain, where they have fundamentally important roles in social behaviours. In humans, disruptions of these peptide systems have been linked to several neurobehavioural disorders, including Prader-Willi syndrome, affective disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and polymorphisms of V1a vasopressin receptor have been linked to autism. Here we report that the rat olfactory bulb contains a large population of interneurons which express vasopressin, that blocking the actions of vasopressin in the olfactory bulb impairs the social recognition abilities of rats and that vasopressin agonists and antagonists can modulate the processing of information by olfactory bulb neurons. The findings indicate that social information is processed in part by a vasopressin system intrinsic to the olfactory system.
许多肽类物质作为脑内化学信使释放后，对复杂行为有强大的影响。最引人注目的是，血管升压素和催产素曾被认为是循环激素，其作用仅限于外周器官，而现在已知它们在大脑中释放，在那里它们在社交行为中起着至关重要的作用。在人类中，这些肽系统的紊乱与几种神经行为障碍有关，包括普拉德-威利综合征、情感障碍和强迫症，V1a 血管升压素受体的多态性与自闭症有关。在这里，我们报告说，大鼠嗅球中含有大量表达血管升压素的中间神经元，阻断嗅球中血管升压素的作用会损害大鼠的社交识别能力，血管升压素激动剂和拮抗剂可以调节嗅球神经元的信息处理。这些发现表明，社交信息部分是由嗅觉系统固有血管升压素系统处理的。
