The weekend warrior effect: Consistent intermittent exercise induces persistent cognitive benefits.

Exercise provides a range of cognitive benefits, including improved memory performance. Previously, we demonstrated that 14 days of continuous voluntary wheel-running exercise enables learning in a hippocampus-dependent Object Location Memory (OLM) task under insufficient, subthreshold training conditions in adult mice. Whether similar exercise benefits can be obtained from consistent intermittent exercise as continuous exercise is unknown.

Specific exercise patterns generate an epigenetic molecular memory window that drives long-term memory formation and identifies ACVR1C as a bidirectional regulator of memory in mice.

Exercise has beneficial effects on cognition throughout the lifespan. Here, we demonstrate that specific exercise patterns transform insufficient, subthreshold training into long-term memory in mice. Our findings reveal a potential molecular memory window such that subthreshold training within this window enables long-term memory formation.

Temporal endurance of exercise-induced benefits on hippocampus-dependent memory and synaptic plasticity in female mice.

Exercise facilitates hippocampal neurogenesis and neuroplasticity that in turn, promotes cognitive function. Our previous studies have demonstrated that in male mice, voluntary exercise enables hippocampus-dependent learning in conditions that are normally subthreshold for long-term memory formation in sedentary animals. Such cognitive enhancement can be maintained long after exercise has ceased and can be re-engaged by a subsequent subthreshold exercise session, suggesting exercise-induced benefits are temporally dynamic.

An evaluation of a student-led career profiling project to support the exploration of a career in general practice and other specialties.

Background: Choosing medical careers is complex but the undergraduate period is formative. St George's University of London (SGUL) students called for greater careers information.

Aim: To develop and evaluate students' careers resources.

Cocaine induces paradigm-specific changes to the transcriptome within the ventral tegmental area.

During the initial stages of drug use, cocaine-induced neuroadaptations within the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are critical for drug-associated cue learning and drug reinforcement processes. These neuroadaptations occur, in part, from alterations to the transcriptome. Although cocaine-induced transcriptional mechanisms within the VTA have been examined, various regimens and paradigms have been employed to examine candidate target genes.

HDAC3 Activity within the Nucleus Accumbens Regulates Cocaine-Induced Plasticity and Behavior in a Cell-Type-Specific Manner.

Epigenetic mechanisms regulate processes of neuroplasticity critical to cocaine-induced behaviors. This includes the Class I histone deacetylase (HDAC) HDAC3, known to act as a negative regulator of cocaine-associated memory formation within the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Despite this, it remains unknown how cocaine alters HDAC3-dependent mechanisms.

Beliefs about Emotions, Depression, Anxiety and Fatigue: A Mediational Analysis.

Background: Beliefs that it is unacceptable to experience or express negative emotions have been found to be associated with various clinical problems. It is unclear how such beliefs, which could be viewed as a form of unhelpful perfectionism about emotions, may contribute to symptomatology.

Aims: This study investigated two hypotheses: a) greater endorsement of beliefs about the unacceptability of negative emotions will be associated with greater emotional avoidance and lower levels of support-seeking and self-compassion; b) these beliefs about emotions will be associated with higher levels of symptoms of depression, anxiety and fatigue and that this relationship will be mediated by social support-seeking, emotional avoidance and self-compassion.

From BPS guideline to BPS directive: has the hospital procurement bar moved?

There have been an increasing number of concerns regarding procurement practices in the public sector, together with intensive media scrutiny of those practices in the health sector. Yet, notwithstanding those concerns, only Ontario and British Columbia have developed a comprehensive procurement framework to address these issues. Ontario has recently replaced its relatively new procurement practices guidelines with a broader directive.

Coming soon to a health sector near you: an advance look at the new Ontario Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA): part II.

This is Part II of a two-part article that provides a broad overview and comparative study of the new Ontario health sector-specific privacy legislation. In Part I, which appeared in the previous issue of Healthcare Quarterly, we discussed the objectives, structure and scope of, as well as the substantive rights and obligations created by, the new Ontario Act. In Part II, we discuss the administrative obligations created by the Ontario Act, as well as the provisions relating to the enforcement of, and remedies available under, the Act.

Coming soon to a health sector near you: An advance look at the new Ontario Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA).

This is Part I of a two-part article that provides a broad overview of the new health sector privacy legislation in Ontario, and compares this legislation to personal health legislation in other provinces. In Part I, we discuss the objectives, structure and scope of, as well as the substantive rights and obligations created by, the Ontario Act. In Part II, which will appear in the Fall 2004 issue, we will discuss the administrative obligations under the Ontario Act, as well as the provisions relating to enforcement and remedies.

Preventing the cure from being worse than the disease: special issues in hospital outsourcing.

Like private sector organizations, hospitals are increasingly outsourcing services from food/cafeteria and security and facilities maintenance to the consulting and training of personnel and information technology (IT) functions. Also like private sector organizations, while hospitals seek the cure that will improve services at less cost, without careful management, the cure can be worse than the disease.

Taking the next step to privacy compliance for hospitals: implementing the OHA guidelines.

The recently released "Guidelines for Managing Privacy, Data Protection and Security for Ontario Hospitals," prepared by the Ontario Hospital eHealth Council Privacy and Security Working Group (the "Guidelines") are useful in that they provide a comprehensive overview of the types of issues raised for hospitals by existing and pending privacy legislation, and a very high-level framework for addressing same. However, the Guidelines are, as stated high-level guidelines only,--leaving hospital management to grapple with the next big step towards privacy compliance: how to operationalize the Guidelines within their particular hospital.