Effect of general anesthesia in infancy on long-term recognition memory in humans and rats.

Anesthesia in infancy impairs performance in recognition memory tasks in mammalian animals, but it is unknown if this occurs in humans. Successful recognition can be based on stimulus familiarity or recollection of event details. Several brain structures involved in recollection are affected by anesthesia-induced neurodegeneration in animals.

Venezuelan equine encephalitis replicon immunization overcomes intrinsic tolerance and elicits effective anti-tumor immunity to the 'self' tumor-associated antigen, neu in a rat mammary tumor model.

Many tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) represent 'self' antigens and as such, are subject to the constraints of immunologic tolerance. There are significant barriers to eliciting anti-tumor immune responses of sufficient magnitude. We have taken advantage of a Venezuelan equine encephalitis-derived alphavirus replicon vector system with documented in vivo tropism for immune system dendritic cells.