**9. AVP in female humans**

62 Neuroendocrinology and Behavior

**8.2. AVP and male human aggression** 

development of treatments for aggression disorders.

mood disorders [194, 195].

**8.3. AVP and male human depression and anxiety** 

**8.4. AVP and male human learning and memory** 

molecular mechanisms of long term memory consolidation [201, 202].

indicate that intranasal AVP increases the negative emotional response to neutral facial expressions [181, 182]. These effects appear to be gender specific, as intranasal AVP in men stimulates agonistic responses to the faces of novel men, but stimulates affiliative facial responses in women and increases positive perceptions of these faces [181]. AVP increases cooperative behavior in men in response to a cooperative gesture in a social experiment, and this behavioral effect was associated with fMRI activity in brain regions involved in affiliative responses [74]. It has been suggested that plasma AVP may be a biomarker of distressed relationships in men [105]. Similar to several other behavioral topics, these gender

AVP levels in cerebrospinal fluid (csf) have been correlated with aggression in male humans [183]. However, a study comparing csf AVP in violent offenders vs. controls found no differences [184]. Patients with PTSD often have difficulties controlling their aggression levels, and clinical studies suggest that plasma levels are elevated in war veterans with PTSD [185]. Furthermore, intranasal AVP enhances physiological responding to combat images in male Vietnam veterans compared to saline and OXT [186], and AVP has been identified as a likely mediator for the effects of early life stress on the development of PTSD [187]. The available clinical evidence supports continued investigation of central AVP in the

The first study suggesting that AVP was involved in mood disorders was from 1978 [188]. Plasma AVP is elevated in male patients with depression [95], and it has been suggested that increased AVP mRNA in the SON mediates the elevated plasma AVP levels [97]. Some have hypothesized that plasma AVP is specifically correlated to melancholic depression [97] as well as suicide [189, 190]. In terms of the prevalence of depression within a population, elevated plasma AVP is correlated with anxiety and a family history of depression [191, 192]. Resilience against depression has been associated with a SNP of the V1b receptor gene [193]. These data have generated continued interest in AVP antagonists in the treatment of

Administration of an AVP analog enhances memory in human males [196, 197]. Treatment of boys with learning disorders with acute or chronic AVP increases the ability to remember stories. However, synthetic AVP may only affect reaction time, not memory [198]. In elderly humans, however, repeated intranasal AVP does not improve long term memory [199]. One hypothesis is that the memory enhancing effects of AVP are mediated by a general increase in arousal [200], although animal work suggests that AVP has specific effects on the

specific effects need to be considered with respect to treatment development.
