Title
A short note on oxytocin and stress attenuation
Authors
Tamilselvan Kuppusamy1,*, Padmavathi Ramaswamy2, Muraliswaran Perumal1, Santhi Silambanan2 & Archana Prabu Kumar2,3
Affiliation
1Sri Venkateshwaraa Medical College Hospital & Research Centre, Puducherry, India; 2Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, SRIHER, Chennai, India; 3College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Arabian Gulf University, Manama, Bahrain; *Corresponding author
K. Tamilselvan - Email: drktamilselvanphysiology@gmail.com; Phone:+91 9488074445
Article Type
Review
Date
Received October 1, 2021; Revised October 18, 2021; Accepted October 18, 2021, Published November 30, 2021
Abstract
Stress is integral part of life and it initiates appropriate response at times of adversities to promise survival. Stress could be either physiological or psychogenic. Stress is often psychogenic in nature and it induces the release of cortisol from adrenal cortex into circulation by activating Hypo thalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA). Cortisol thus released mediates the stress response by its catabolic effects to enhance the activity of vital organs during emergency. However, prolonged activation of the HPA axis can lead to physical and mental illness as an outcome of persistent stress. Nature has bestowed the biological system with an array of endogenous mechanisms to buffer stress. Oxytocin, a nano-peptide released by the magno-cellular neurons of hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) is an efficient stress buffering neuro-peptide. This hormone mediates many physiological and behavioural functions get released during stress. It attenuates the stress axis initiated by the release of corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) from the parvocellular neurons of the same hypothalamic nucleus. Oxytocin released by PVN exerts an inhibitory effect on the release of CRH by down-regulating the expression of the gene that transcribes for this hypothalamic hormone. Thus, it inhibits the release of adreno cotico trophic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol, exerting an overall suppressive modulation of the stress axis and attenuates stress.
Keywords
stress, allostasis, allostatic overload, oxytocin, stress attenuation
Citation
Kuppusamy et al. Bioinformation 17(11): 921-923 (2021)
Edited by
P Kangueane
ISSN
0973-2063
Publisher
License
This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
