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. 2014 Jun 10;5:120. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2014.00120

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Copyright © 2014 Cornelius, Koverech, Crupi, Di Paola, Koverech, Lodato, Scuto, Salinaro, Cuzzocrea, Calabrese and Calabrese.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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The hormesis (biphasic) dose–response curve: generalized quantitative features. The hormetic dose response is characterized by specific quantitative features concerning its amplitude and width. Based on more than 10,000 hormetic dose responses in various hormetic databases, approximately 80% have their maximum response less than twofold greater than the control. The strong majority of hormetic dose responses extend over approximately a 5- to 10-fold dose range immediately below the estimated response threshold. The hormetic dose response may occur either as a result of a direct stimulation or as an overcompensation response following an initial disruption in homeostasis, in both cases being the quantitative features similar. The hormetic response appears to quantitatively describe the limits of biological plasticity across phyla as well as at different levels of biological organization (cell, organ, and organism). The quantitative features of the hormetic dose response are also independent of mechanism. Pharmaceutical treatments for a wide range of human conditions are based upon the hormetic biphasic dose response as discovered within preclinical evaluations and then directly applied to human populations.