In addition to its role in reproduction, oxytocin has central actions modulating behavioural and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis responses during late pregnancy and lactation. The hypothesis that ovarian hormones modulate the effects of oxytocin on HPA axis activity was studied in 7-day ovariectomised rats receiving oestradiol with or without progesterone replacement and intracerebroventricular (i.c.v) minipump infusion of oxytocin (100 ng/h). In an initial experiment, i.c.v. oxytocin had no effect on basal or restraint-stimulated plasma adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and corticosterone concentrations or hypothalamic corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) mRNA expression with low oestradiol replacement alone but it had a stimulatory effect in the presence of low oestradiol and progesterone. To investigate further whether oestradiol modulates central actions of oxytocin, rats received low dioestrous (low), pro-oestrous (medium) or pregnancy (high) oestradiol replacement levels, yielding plasma concentrations of < 5, 17.3 +/- 4.5 and 258 +/- 32 pg/ml, respectively, with or without i.c.v. oxytocin. Oestradiol caused dose-dependent increases in basal plasma ACTH and corticosterone concentrations but decreased the ACTH response to restraint stress. In parallel to the changes in basal plasma ACTH, high oestrogen increased basal CRF hnRNA, CRF mRNA in the paraventricular nucleus and pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) mRNA in the pituitary gland, while decreasing restraint stress-stimulated levels. Intracerebroventricular administration of oxytocin reduced basal and stress-stimulated plasma ACTH, hypothalamic CRF hnRNA (30 min), CRF mRNA and pituitary POMC mRNA (4 h) levels parallel to the increases induced by elevating plasma oestradiol. The present study demonstrates the converse effects of oestradiol on basal and restraint stress-stimulated basal HPA axis activity, and that the ability of central oxytocin to inhibit HPA axis activity depends on the levels of circulating oestradiol.