Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Cytoreductive Surgery and Heated Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy.

Background: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) pose an increased risk of gastrointestinal cancer with especially worse prognosis. Cytoreductive surgery and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS/HIPEC) improves outcomes in selected patients with colorectal peritoneal metastases. Little published data describes the outcomes of CRS/HIPEC in IBD patients.

Extremely high peritoneal cancer index in colorectal peritoneal metastases demonstrates safety and overall survival benefit in selected patients undergoing cytoreductive surgery and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy.

Background: Colorectal peritoneal metastases are a devastating consequence of colorectal cancer (CRC) with extremely poor prognosis. Patients that can undergo complete cytoreduction by cytoreductive surgery and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS/HIPEC) have a markedly improved overall survival. Traditionally, patients with extremely high peritoneal cancer index (PCI), PCI >20, are not offered CRS/HIPEC.

Rapid nongenomic estrogen signaling controls alcohol drinking behavior.

Ovarian-derived estrogen is a key modulator of numerous physiological processes via genomic and nongenomic mechanisms, including signaling non-canonically at membrane-associated estrogen receptors in the brain to rapidly regulate neuronal function. However, the mechanisms mediating estrogen regulation of behaviors such as alcohol consumption remain unclear. Early alcohol drinking confers greater risk for alcohol use disorder in women than men, and binge alcohol drinking is correlated with high circulating estrogen levels, but a causal role for estrogen signaling in driving alcohol drinking in gonadally-intact animals has not been established.

Sex differences in binge alcohol drinking and the behavioral consequences of protracted abstinence in C57BL/6J mice.

Background: Binge alcohol drinking is a risk factor linked to numerous disease states including alcohol use disorder (AUD). While men binge drink more alcohol than women, this demographic gap is quickly shrinking, and preclinical studies demonstrate that females consistently consume more alcohol than males. Further, women are at increased risk for the co-expression of AUD with neuropsychiatric diseases such as anxiety and mood disorders.

Sex differences in binge alcohol drinking and the behavioral consequences of protracted abstinence in C57BL/6J mice.

Background: Binge alcohol drinking is a risk factor linked to numerous disease states including alcohol use disorder (AUD). While men binge drink more alcohol than women, this demographic gap is quickly shrinking, and preclinical studies demonstrate that females consistently consume more alcohol than males. Further, women are at increased risk for the co-expression of AUD with neuropsychiatric diseases such as anxiety and mood disorders.

The paraventricular thalamus provides a polysynaptic brake on limbic CRF neurons to sex-dependently blunt binge alcohol drinking and avoidance behavior in mice.

Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) neurons that synthesize corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) drive binge alcohol drinking and anxiety. Here, we found that female C57BL/6J mice binge drink more than males and have greater basal BNST neuron excitability and synaptic excitation. We identified a dense VGLUT2 + synaptic input from the paraventricular thalamus (PVT) that releases glutamate directly onto BNST neurons but also engages a large BNST interneuron population to ultimately inhibit BNST neurons, and this polysynaptic PVT-BNST circuit is more robust in females than males.

Epigenomically Bistable Regions across Neuron-Specific Genes Govern Neuron Eligibility to a Coding Ensemble in the Hippocampus.

Sensory inputs activate sparse neuronal ensembles in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, but how eligibility of individual neurons to recruitment is determined remains elusive. We identify thousands of largely bistable (CpG methylated or unmethylated) regions within neuronal gene bodies, established during mouse dentate gyrus development. Reducing DNA methylation and the proportion of the methylated epialleles at bistable regions compromises novel context-induced neuronal activation.