Barrel rotation evoked by intracerebroventricular vasopressin injections in conscious rats. I. Description and general pharmacology.

Intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) arginine-vasopressin (AVP) injections in rats evoke an unusual motor response termed 'barrel rotation' (BR). This report documents several aspects of BR after i.c.v. AVP in conscious, adult male Sprague-Dawley rats: single i.c.v. AVP injections (100-1000 ng/5 microliters) evoke BR in about 50% of naive rats with no relationship to dose and 20% mortality; no directional preference exists for BR, and sensitivity to BR does not vary over a weight range of 301-475 g; continuous i.c.v. AVP infusions at doses of 50-2500 ng/h evoked BR in 13 and 50% of rats tested at the extreme ranges; latency to BR was always within 3-6 min in infusion experiments; a protocol where rats received a single i.c.v. AVP injection (1 microgram) on day 1 followed on day 3 by 0.5 micrograms, increased the proportion of rats with BR from 51% to 83% (P less than 0.05), indicating a sensitization phenomenon; latency to BR after single i.c.v. injections did not fit the assumption of single underlying normal distribution; a novel method to analyze these data, hazard plotting, revealed two phases to the BR latency under ambient illumination. The following paper presents evidence of visual/vestibular involvement and the efficacy of anti-seizure drugs. Collectively, the data are compatible with the hypothesis that brain vasopressin pathways are involved in some abnormalities of motor output.