Rapid nongenomic estrogen signaling controls alcohol drinking behavior in mice.

Ovarian-derived estrogen can signal non-canonically at membrane-associated receptors in the brain to rapidly regulate neuronal function. Early alcohol drinking confers greater risk for alcohol use disorder in women than men, and binge alcohol drinking is correlated with high estrogen levels, but a causal role for estrogen in driving alcohol drinking has not been established. We found that female mice displayed greater binge alcohol drinking and reduced avoidance when estrogen was high during the estrous cycle than when it was low.

Circadian Disruption Impacts Fetal Development in Mice Using High-Frequency Ultrasound.

The developmental origins of health and disease theory suggests that environmental exposures during early life, particularly during prenatal life, can greatly influence health status later in life. Irregular light-dark cycles, such as those experienced during shift work, result in the repeated disruption of circadian rhythms, which negatively impacts physiological and behavioral cycles. The purpose of our study was to assess parameters in the developing mouse embryo and fetus using high frequency ultrasound when exposed to circadian disruption.

Psychosocial needs and outcomes of adults with spina bifida: A scoping review, 1974-2023.

Limited evidence exists that serves to guide the field of practice and research pertaining to the long-term issues and needs of adults with spina bifida. Understanding the lived experience of adults with spina bifida has lagged behind considerably resulting in limited evidence-based guidance for individuals with spina bifida and their families and the health care professionals who provide services to this population. Given the paucity of knowledge of the lived experience as it pertains to adulthood, this scoping review was undertaken.

Climate displaces deposition as dominant driver of dissolved organic carbon concentrations in historically acidified lakes.

Unlabelled: Climate and atmospheric deposition interact with watershed properties to drive dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in lakes. Because drivers of DOC concentration are inter-related and interact, it is challenging to assign a single dominant driver to changes in lake DOC concentration across spatiotemporal scales. Leveraging forty years of data across sixteen lakes, we used structural equation modeling to show that the impact of climate, as moderated by watershed characteristics, has become more dominant in recent decades, superseding the influence of sulfate deposition that was observed in the 1980s.