These results highlight that the E47-ΔNp63α axis may be potential therapeutic targets for treatment of squamous cell carcinoma.Creativity is an essential cognitive ability linked to all areas of our everyday functioning. Thus, finding a way to enhance it is of broad interest. A large number of anecdotal reports suggest that the consumption of psychedelic drugs can enhance creative thinking; however, scientific evidence is lacking. Following a double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group design, we demonstrated that psilocybin (0.17 mg/kg) induced a time- and construct-related differentiation of effects on creative thinking. Acutely, psilocybin increased ratings of (spontaneous) creative insights, while decreasing (deliberate) task-based creativity. Seven days after psilocybin, number of novel ideas increased. Furthermore, we utilized an ultrahigh field multimodal brain imaging approach, and found that acute and persisting effects were predicted by within- and between-network connectivity of the default mode network. Findings add some support to historical claims that psychedelics can influence aspects of the creative process, potentially indicating them as a tool to investigate creativity and subsequent underlying neural mechanisms. Trial NL6007; psilocybin as a tool for enhanced cognitive flexibility; https//www.trialregister.nl/trial/6007 .Substantial evidence suggests that circulating ovarian steroids modulate behavior differently in women with PMDD than in those without this condition. However, hormonal state-related abnormalities of neural functioning in PMDD remain to be better characterized. In addition, while altered neural function in PMDD likely co-exists with alterations in intrinsic cellular function, such a relationship has not been explored. Here, we investigated the effects of ovarian steroids on basal, resting regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in PMDD, and, in an exploratory analysis, we tested whether the rCBF findings were linked to the expression of ESC/E(Z) genes, which form an essential ovarian steroid-regulated gene-silencing complex. Resting rCBF was measured with oxygen-15 water PET (189 PET sessions in 43 healthy women and 20 women with PMDD) during three self-as-own-control conditions GnRH agonist (Lupron)-induced ovarian suppression, estradiol add-back, and progesterone add-back. ESC/E(Z) gene expression data were obtained from RNA-sequencing of lymphoblastoid cell lines performed in a previous study and were examined in relation to hormone-induced changes in rCBF. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/mpi-0479605.html In the rCBF PET data, there was a significant diagnosis-by-hormone interaction in the subgenual cingulate (PFDR = 0.05), an important neuroanatomical hub for regulating affective state. Whereas control women showed no hormonally-related changes in resting rCBF, those with PMDD showed decreased resting rCBF during both estradiol (P = 0.02) and progesterone (P = 0.0002) add-back conditions. In addition, in PMDD, ESC/E(Z) gene expression correlated with the change in resting rCBF between Lupron-alone and progesterone conditions (Pearson r = -0.807, P = 0.016). This work offers a formulation of PMDD that integrates behavioral, neural circuit, and cellular mechanisms, and may provide new targets for future therapeutic interventions.Oncogenic KRAS has been previously identified to act in a cell-intrinsic manner to modulate multiple biological functions of colorectal cancer (CRC). Here, we demonstrate a cell-extrinsic role of KRAS, where KRAS engages with the tumor microenvironment by functional reprogramming of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). In human CRC specimens, mutant KRAS positively correlates with the presence of TAMs. Mutationally activated KRAS in tumor cells reprograms macrophages to a TAM-like phenotype via a combination effect of tumor-derived CSF2 and lactate. In turn, KRAS-reprogrammed macrophages were shown to not only promote tumor progression but also induce the resistance of tumor cells to cetuximab therapy. Mechanistically, KRAS drives the production of CSF2 and lactate in tumor cells by stabilizing hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), a transcription factor that controls the expression of CSF2 and glycolytic genes. Mutant KRAS increased the production of reactive oxygen species, an inhibitor of prolyl hydroxylase activity which decreases HIF-1α hydroxylation, leading to enhanced HIF-1α stabilization. This cell-extrinsic mechanism awards KRAS a critical role in engineering a permissive microenvironment to promote tumor malignancy, and may present new insights on potential therapeutic defense strategies against mutant KRAS tumors.Observational studies have suggested bidirectional associations between psychiatric disorders and COVID-19 phenotypes, but results of such studies are inconsistent. Mendelian Randomization (MR) may overcome the limitations of observational studies, e.g., unmeasured confounding and uncertainties about cause and effect. We aimed to elucidate associations between neuropsychiatric disorders and COVID-19 susceptibility and severity. To that end, we applied a two-sample, bidirectional, univariable, and multivariable MR design to genetic data from genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of neuropsychiatric disorders and COVID-19 phenotypes (released in January 2021). In single-variable Generalized Summary MR analysis, the most significant and only Bonferroni-corrected significant result was found for genetic liability to BIP-SCZ (a combined GWAS of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia as cases vs. controls) increasing risk of COVID-19 (OR = 1.17, 95% CI, 1.06-1.28). However, we found a significant, positive genetic co9 by others may have resulted from statistical models incompletely capturing BMI as a continuous covariate.Intravenous (IV) subanesthetic doses of ketamine have been shown to reduce psychiatric distress in both major depressive (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the effect of ketamine on cognitive function in these disorders is not well understood. To address this gap, we examined the effect of a single dose of IV ketamine on cognition in individuals with MDD and/or PTSD relative to healthy controls (HC). Psychiatric (n = 29; 15 PTSD, 14 MDD) and sex- age- and IQ matched HC (n = 29) groups were recruited from the community. A single subanesthetic dose of IV ketamine was administered. Mood and cognitive measures were collected prior to, 2 h and 1 day post-ketamine administration. MDD/PTSD individuals evidenced a large-magnitude improvement in severity of depressive symptoms at both 2-hours and 1 day post-ketamine administration (p's  less then  .001, Cohen d's = 0.80-1.02). Controlling for baseline performance and years of education, IV ketamine induced declines in attention (ATTN), executive function (EF), and verbal memory (VM) 2 h post-administration, all of which had resolved by 1 day post-ketamine across groups.