Integrated hepatic transcriptomics and metabolomics identify Pck1 as a key factor in the broad dysregulation induced by vehicle pollutants.

Background: Exposure to air pollution is associated with worldwide morbidity and mortality. Diesel exhaust (DE) emissions are important contributors which induce vascular inflammation and metabolic disturbances by unknown mechanisms. We aimed to determine molecular pathways activated by DE in the liver that could be responsible for its cardiometabolic toxicity.

Perturbative ensemble density functional theory applied to charge transfer excitations.

Charge transfer excitation energies are known to be challenging for standard time-dependent (TD) density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Perturbative ensemble DFT (pEDFT) was suggested as an easy-to-implelemt, low-cost alternative to TDDFT, because it is an in principle exact theory for calculating excitation energies that produces useful valence excitation energies. Here, we examine analytically and numerically (based on the benzene-tetracyanoethylene complex) how well pEDFT performs in the charge transfer limit.

Associations between hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis hormone levels, major depression features and antidepressant effects of ketamine.

Background: Subanesthetic doses of (R,S)-ketamine (ketamine) have demonstrated rapid and robust antidepressant effects in individuals with depression. However, individual variability in response to ketamine exists, and current biomarkers of ketamine treatment response are not entirely understood. Preclinical evidence suggests a link between hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation, a determinant of the stress response system, and ketamine's efficacy in stressed mice exhibiting enhanced antidepressant responses.

Age is associated with altered locomotor and hypothermic response to acute nicotine.

Cigarette smoking is at an all-time low. However, nicotine consumption has diversified with the introduction of commercial tobacco products that include Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems. Nicotine is the main psychoactive component of tobacco and contributes to the addictive properties of tobacco products.