New and Exciting from PLoS Biology and Medicine

Genetic Dissection of Behavioural and Autonomic Effects of Î9-Tetrahydrocannabinol in Mice and the accompanying editorial Understanding Cannabinoid Psychoactivity with Mouse Genetic Models:

The fact that cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug has motivated a great deal of research aimed at understanding how it produces its psychoactive effects. Here I use the term psychoactive to describe the mild euphoria, altered perceptions, sense of relaxation, and sociability that often, but not always, accompany recreational cannabis use. Despite the difficulties inherent in working with lipophilic cannabinoids such as Î9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the primary psychoactive component of cannabis, our understanding of the mechanism of action of these compounds at the cellular level has increased dramatically over the past 20 years. However, a complete understanding of how cannabis elicits its psychoactive effects would include an appreciation of its actions at the cellular and network level as well as an identification of the neural circuits perturbed. The cannabinoid field has now matured to the point where investigators can begin to relate the cellular mechanisms of THC action to the behavioral effects of cannabis.

HCV-HIV Coinfection: Simple Messages from a Complex Disease:

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV infection are both major global health problems, each with their own specific unsolved and difficult issues of prevention, pathogenesis, and therapy. For HIV, many of the clinical problems experienced are related to loss of immunological control over relatively commonly encountered pathogens. In most of these cases (e.g., cytomegalovirus [CMV], Pneumocystis jiroveci. human herpesvirus-8), normal immunological control is quite efficient, and these organisms behave as "opportunists." HCV is slightly different, in that immunological control in normal HIV-uninfected individuals is often poor, and HCV infection alone can lead to the gradual evolution of end-stage liver disease in normal hosts. However, although a consensus is forming about the basic details of the immune responses associated with acute control of HCV monoinfection, the long-term relationships between immune responses, viral load, and most importantly, disease progression in those who are persistently infected are still poorly understood.