Clinical significance and risk factors for new onset and recurring atrial fibrillation following cardiac surgery - a retrospective data analysis.

Background: Although mortality after cardiac surgery has significantly decreased in the last decade, patients still experience clinically relevant postoperative complications. Among others, atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common consequence of cardiac surgery, which is associated with prolonged hospitalization and increased mortality.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting, valve surgery or a combination of both at the University Hospital Muenster between April 2014 and July 2015.

Female Wistar rats obtained from different breeders vary in anxiety-like behavior and epileptogenesis.

Outbred rats are widely used in biomedical research studies. The genotypic variation, different housing and handling conditions during development, and gender of used rats can be expected to cause variations in behavior and epileptogenesis. We tested the hypothesis that adult female Wistar rats from different breeders vary in anxiety-like behavior, seizure susceptibility, and epileptogenesis in the kindling model of temporal lobe epilepsy.