Antibiotics for tonsillitis: should the emergency department emulate general practice?

Objectives: To determine whether antibiotics are prescribed appropriately for acute tonsillitis in an emergency department (ED).

Methods: Cross-sectional observational study in large district general hospital in London. Patients diagnosed and coded with 'acute tonsillitis' in the ED over a 3-month period in 2015.

Sleep's influence on a reflexive form of memory that does not require voluntary attention.

Study Objectives: Studies to date have examined the influence of sleep on forms of memory that require voluntary attention. The authors examine the influence of sleep on a form of memory that is acquired by passive viewing.

Design: Induction of the McCollough effect, and measurement of perceptual color bias before and after induction, and before and after intervening sleep, wake, or visual deprivation.

Practice makes imperfect: restorative effects of sleep on motor learning.

Emerging evidence suggests that sleep plays a key role in procedural learning, particularly in the continued development of motor skill learning following initial acquisition. We argue that a detailed examination of the time course of performance across sleep on the finger-tapping task, established as the paradigm for studying the effect of sleep on motor learning, will help distinguish a restorative role of sleep in motor skill learning from a proactive one. Healthy subjects rehearsed for 12 trials and, following a night of sleep, were tested.