title: Arginine vasopressin 4-9 retards spatial alternation learning.
abstract: Thirty adult male rats were randomly divided into three groups and prepared with either posterior parietal, medial frontal or sham neocortical injuries. After a 10-12 day recovery interval, access to water was restricted to a 30-min period per day and the rats were trained to run in a T-maze for a reward of sweetened water. After reaching a pre-training criterion, osmotic mini-pumps (Alzet 2002) were installed subcutaneously. For the next 14 to 15 days, the pumps delivered chronically either 0 or 1.2 micrograms of arginine vasopressin 4-9 (AVP 4-9) dissolved in bacteriostatic saline while the animals were trained on a reinforced spatial alternation task. Analysis of variance on the number of errors committed to a criterion of at least 80% correct alternations in two consecutive training sessions, or a ceiling of 50 errors (attained by two rats with parietal lesions), revealed a significant retardation in animals administered AVP 4-9 during training. These results demonstrate that this centrally active metabolite of vasopressin can interfere with the acquisition of a cognitive learning task when administered concomitantly with training.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Georgia College, Milledgeville 31061.
authors.forename: W F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: McDaniel
authors.forename: P E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Waters
authors.forename: E J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Davall
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001127:Arginine Vasopressin / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D004327:Drinking Behavior / Q000187:drug effects; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D015918:Infusion Pumps, Implantable; D007858:Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D016037:Single-Blind Method
chemical_list: D010446:Peptide Fragments; D001127:Arginine Vasopressin; C045881:argipressin (4-9)