Nasal Oxytocin: Facts and Routes

Joao Paulo Correia Lima,Avelino Luiz Rodrigues

doi:10.4172/2469-6676.100181

Abstract

Research about the oxytocin effects over behaviour is growing up and the main technic used in this research is the nasal oxytocin administration, but there is some controversy if the blood-brain barrier could or not stop the oxytocin entrance in the central nervous system. The authors present some arguments and anatomical structures that can permit the oxytocin entrance in the central nervous system despite de blood-brain barrier, describing direct and indirect paths, justifying the data collected in experiments based on nasal oxytocin administration, in a hypothetical way (not yet demonstrated).

Highlights

The importance of oxytocin in human behaviour and its effects on stress systems is growing and the research on this topic is increasing every day
Strangely enough, we found no reference to these remarkable circumventricular structures in the discussion of oxytocin and brain barriers in our review
These authors discuss the work of Born and others, reputed as one of the most cited to support the hypothesis that the oxytocin administered intranasally reaches the brain through the bloodstream via the nasal mucosa [25]

Summary

Introduction

The importance of oxytocin in human behaviour and its effects on stress systems is growing and the research on this topic is increasing every day. It is important to note that the VOLT, the subfornicial organ and the postrema area send fibres to the hypothalamus and other visceral structures and that the fibres of the neurohypophysis itself have wide diffusion in the nervous tissue, besides the median eminence has important control on the hypothalamic releasing factors [20] It began to be not so strange to us that nasally administered oxytocin can have the results that the literature points out, even influencing behaviours as complex as the social one since there are good possible ways (hypothetically) reach the central nervous system. The way it acts to produce the effects reported in the literature is far from clear and known

Discussion and More

Conclusions