Impact of Plastic Surgery and an Enhanced Prophylaxis Protocol on Cervical Spine Surgery Infection.

Reduction of surgical site infections (SSIs) is important in improving cervical spine surgery outcomes. Plastic surgery involvement and an enhanced modified prophylaxis protocol may reduce infection rates. A total of 962 cervical spine operations were conducted by a single surgeon (TFC).

Leveraging emotional intelligence to foster proactive climate change adaptation: A study of engineering decision-making.

The impacts of climate change and development present significant challenges and complexities that require new solutions, wise choices, and multi-disciplinary integration. In this context, emotional intelligence (EI) plays a crucial role. However, traditional engineering education and practice overlook the importance of understanding and managing emotions.

The ketamine metabolite (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine rescues hippocampal mRNA translation, synaptic plasticity and memory in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.

Introduction: Impaired brain protein synthesis, synaptic plasticity, and memory are major hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The ketamine metabolite (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK) has been shown to modulate protein synthesis, but its effects on memory in AD models remain elusive.

Methods: We investigated the effects of HNK on hippocampal protein synthesis, long-term potentiation (LTP), and memory in AD mouse models.

Ventral tegmental area dopamine projections to the hippocampus trigger long-term potentiation and contextual learning.

In most models of neuronal plasticity and memory, dopamine is thought to promote the long-term maintenance of Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) underlying memory processes, but not the initiation of plasticity or new information storage. Here, we used optogenetic manipulation of midbrain dopamine neurons in male DAT::Cre mice, and discovered that stimulating the Schaffer collaterals - the glutamatergic axons connecting CA3 and CA1 regions - of the dorsal hippocampus concomitantly with midbrain dopamine terminals within a 200 millisecond time-window triggers LTP at glutamatergic synapses. Moreover, we showed that the stimulation of this dopaminergic pathway facilitates contextual learning in awake behaving mice, while its inhibition hinders it.