Prolonged Postoperative Mechanical Ventilation (PPMV) in children undergoing abdominal operations: An analysis of the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) database.

Background: Prolonged postoperative mechanical ventilation (PPMV) increases length of stay, hospitalization costs, and postoperative complications. Independent risk factors associated with PPMV are not well-known for children.

Method: We identified children (<18 years) in the ACS NSQIP-P database who underwent a general surgical abdominal operation.

Improving ultrasound for appendicitis through standardized reporting of secondary signs.

Objective: Our aim was to implement a standardized US report that included secondary signs of appendicitis (SS) to facilitate accurate diagnosis of appendicitis and decrease the use of computed tomography (CT) and admissions for observation.

Methods: A multidisciplinary team implemented a quality improvement (QI) intervention in the form of a standardized US report and provided stakeholders with monthly feedback. Outcomes including report compliance, CT use, and observation admissions were compared pretemplate and posttemplate.

Secondary signs may improve the diagnostic accuracy of equivocal ultrasounds for suspected appendicitis in children.

Introduction: Ultrasound (US) is the preferred imaging modality for evaluating appendicitis. Our purpose was to determine if including secondary signs (SS) improve diagnostic accuracy in equivocal US studies.

Methods: Retrospective review identified 825 children presenting with concern for appendicitis and with a right lower quadrant (RLQ) US.

Amygdala-mediated enhancement of memory for specific events depends on the hippocampus.

Emotional events are often remembered better than neutral events, a type of memory prioritization by affective salience that depends on the amygdala. Studies with rats have indicated that direct activation of the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) can enhance memory for neutral events, and if the activation is brief and temporally targeted, can do so in a way that benefits memories for specific events. The essential targets of BLA activation in the case of event-specific memory enhancement were unknown, but the hippocampus was known to receive direct projections from the BLA and to support memory for events.

Event-specific enhancement of memory via brief electrical stimulation to the basolateral complex of the amygdala in rats.

The basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) modulates memory for emotional events, and direct activation of the BLA following a learning session can enhance subsequent memory. Yet optimal enhancement of episodic memory during emotional events would likely require that BLA activation occur close in time to the event and to be brief enough to target specific memories if some events are to be remembered better than others. In the present study, rats were given a novel object recognition memory task in which initial encounters with some of the objects were immediately followed by brief electrical stimulation of the BLA, and these objects were remembered better one day later as compared to objects for which the initial encounter was not followed by stimulation.