Highlights
- • Oxytocin and arginine-vasopressin are similar in structure as are their receptors.
- • Oxytocin and arginine-vasopressin can activate each other’s receptors (i.e., cross-talk).
- • Receptor cross-talk can occur in the brain and the periphery.
- • Understanding receptor cross-talk will important for drug development.
Abstract
Oxytocin (OT) and arginine-vasopressin (AVP) act in the brain to regulate social cognition/social behavior and in the periphery to influence a variety of physiological processes. Although the chemical structures of OT and AVP as well as their receptors are quite similar, OT and AVP can have distinct or even opposing actions. Here, we review the increasing body of evidence that exogenously administered and endogenously released OT and AVP can activate each other’s canonical receptors (i.e., cross-talk) and examine the possibility that receptor cross-talk following the synaptic and non-synaptic release of OT and AVP contributes to their distinct roles in the brain and periphery. Understanding the consequences of cross-talk between OT and AVP receptors will be important in identifying how these peptides control social cognition and behavior and for the development of drugs to treat a variety of psychiatric disorders.