Distribution of androgen receptor immunoreactivity in vasopressin- and oxytocin-immunoreactive neurons in the male rat brain.

Arginine vasopressin-immunoreactive (AVP-ir) neurons in the bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BST) and medial amygdaloid nucleus are very responsive to gonadal hormones. After gonadectomy, these neurons lose their AVP immunoreactivity and stop expressing AVP mRNA. Testosterone treatment reverses these changes, acting via androgen as well as estrogen receptor-mediated mechanisms. Although AVP-ir neurons contain estrogen receptor immunoreactivity, it is not known whether they also contain androgen receptor immunoreactivity. To answer this question, brains of male rats were stained immunocytochemically for AVP as well as for androgen receptors. In the BST and medial amygdaloid nucleus, respectively, 90.5% and 91.2% of the AVP-ir neurons contained androgen receptor immunoreactivity. In contrast, in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the supraoptic nucleus, and the magnocellular portion of the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), none of the AVP-ir neurons contained androgen receptor immunoreactivity. In the ventral zone of the medial parvocellular part of the PVN (mpvPVN), 4.3% of the scattered AVP-ir neurons contained androgen receptor immunoreactivity. One of the control experiments, i.e. staining sections for oxytocin (OT) rather than AVP, revealed that although OT-ir neurons in the supraoptic and magnocellular portion of the PVN did not contain androgen receptor immunoreactivity, 52.5% of the OT-ir neurons in the mpvPVN did. The results suggest that androgens can bind to androgen receptors in AVP-ir neurons in the BST and medial amygdaloid nucleus, possibly to influence AVP expression. The results also suggest that androgens can bind to androgen receptors in AVP-ir and OT-ir neurons in the mpvPVN. The function of the latter interaction, however, is unclear.