Vasotocin increases quiet sleep and suppresses active sleep in newborn cats. Opposite effects after vasotocin immunoneutralization.

ABSTRACT

One picogram of synthetic arginine vasotocin (AVT) administered into the lateral ventricle of newborn cats aged 7-9 days, increased the amount of quiet sleep and markedly decreased the amount of active sleep. Ten pg AVT completely suppressed active sleep during the recording time of 3 hr. The increase in the quiet sleep occurred within 5-7 min and lasted for the entire recording time of 3 hr. An undiluted specific AVT antiserum (10 microliters) administered into the lateral ventricle, induced opposite effects suppressing quiet sleep and increasing active sleep. It is concluded that in newborn cats both AVT and the AVT antiserum induce the same hypnogenic effects as in the adult cats.