@Brian_BH wouldnât adding the activators for PEPCK here make sense? Only acetyl-coA as an activator here is tested in the deck. I know the general anki best practice card philosophy is to test one individual topic/fact per card but these are very closely related and adding a card for it isnât an option.
In the same card:
The conversion of oxaloacetate to pyruvate is activated by {{c1::cortisol}} and {{c1::glucagon}}.
Itâs probably worth discriminating between activators in the sense of the typical use of the term, as in local metabolites, co-factors, ions, etc. This is distinct from systemic and trophic signaling molecules like hormones, generally.
The general distinction is that activators are given by direct mediation, locally and directly, whereas hormonal encouragement is often diffuse, multi-factorial, and not at all (always) direct.
For those reasons, Iâm loathe to reference hormones as being âactivators.â
Even though they do, obviously, have all sorts of myriad effects on innumerable enzymes under the Sun, glucagon is not an activator in the sense that, say, calcium or zinc, or NAD+ are activators.
True. Iâm pretty sure glucagon stimulates transcription of PEPCK not sure about cortisol specifically. Is there some wording you would prefer?
The conversion of oxaloacetate to pyruvate is upregulated by {{c1::cortisol}} and {{c1::glucagon}}.?
edit: cortisol stimulates gene expression of PEPCK as well.
Yeah, hormones are going to have a zillion effects across the body, thereâs no doubting that.
In this case, if the card is testing a specific step in a given pathway, Iâm not immediately certain that we need (or want) to include hormonal influences.
If we open that Pandoraâs box, try to name a metabolic function that wonât have 6+ hormones attached to it. Thatâs just looking at first-order hormonal effects, not counting trophic hormones, etc., etc.
Of course, there are some that are broadly necessary to know, and those are covered in other notes in the deck (glucagonâs influence on glycogen/glucose, for example, and countless others).
Iâm not opposed to a note in the Extra field, noting for example that, say, insulin broadly favors this direction, and glucagon that, or whatever equivalent, as I think those ideas are helpful to keep in mind but Iâm reticent to include hormonal effects for individual enzymatic steps for the reasons above. Way too much potential for bloat, particularly on individual cards that are zoomed into specific step-functions.
Itâs already covered by the image in the original and my updated version so I donât think we would need to add anything in the extra section. I understand what youâre saying. The original choice to include it in the image by whoever made it was what made me wonder if itâs worth testing as well in the cloze.
This sort of falls into a problem that I think always besets everyone: how to tackle a really big systemic idea?
And, I think, arguably, the only way to do it is to chip away at it from beneath (smaller, individual pieces of the pie) and then from a birdâs eye view (do you understand how it all fits together?).
Usually, I think, thereâs just no hope of any one card hoping to do justice to something like that, and you see this basic question all the time on Reddit (âhow do I take this big thing and break it into Anki???â)
At the end of the day, I think it just takes a couple of different lenses. There are going to be the cards that zoom in on each individual step, and those that zoom out to the staircase or the house (or the neighborhood, or whatever).
Hormones are tricky, because my God theyâre just like running through the entire house flipping light switches.
A great example of this is beta-blockers, which function to help alleviate heart strain. Well, how do they do that? They do it by blocking epinephrine receptors, which âcalmsâ the nervous response and, thus, cardiac activity.
Seems chill, seems fine, slows the heart. Except what else does epinephrine do? It also raises blood sugar. So elevated doses can push people hypoglycemic. Okay, well shit. Whatâs the solution there?
You give the fuckers glucagon. The antidote to a heart failure medicine overdose is glucagon.
Itâs a silly example, but I think a great illustration of where youâre just not going to get that into one card. It requires multi-level understanding to piece all that together, and thatâs going to come at the expense of various levels of âzoomâ (I need a new metaphor).
This also gets at some other principles, of pedagogy, learning theory, atomization, other stuff, that I think ultimately need to be in place for ideal learning (and, maybe, ideal Anki decks).
None of this is a criticism of you at all, or your idea. These are just my gripes, generally, when I see some older cards and I wonder âwhy is God doing this to meeeeee?â
That makes sense! Ok to keep it in the image though if it wonât eventually make it into a cloze? or should I remove it all together
Iâll give you leeway to figure out what you think is best. In the image (if itâs not too cluttered) or a note in the Extra field. 
This is how it currently exists in my suggested new image. I donât think it looks too cluttered, open to criticism though. Separately, Iâm pretty pleased with that chem doodle software I think these new pathway images are turning out pretty good.
Lord, itâs such a far cry from the originals. It already looks a lot better.
I feel comfortable weighing in broadly that I think it looks good. Iâm far enough removed that I trust you all to look more closely and make sure itâs not missing anything you think should be there.
Great!
I think itâs good. Definitely has everything that was included in the original + the structures now. If we are not adding the cloze for cortisol + glucagon I think the suggestion is complete!