Effects of acupuncture and sham acupuncture in addition to physiotherapy in patients undergoing bilateral total knee arthroplasty--a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To compare the acute effects of acupuncture with sham acupuncture on knee pain, range of motion and ambulation in patients with knee osteoarthritis undergoing bilateral total knee arthroplasty, when added to a standard postoperative physiotherapy programme.

Design: Prospective patient- and assessor-blinded randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Acute inpatient physiotherapy department.

Lack of interference in long-term memory for socially learned food preferences in rats (Rattus norvegicus).

Outside the laboratory, rats (Rattus norvegicus) are likely both to interact with several conspecifics that have eaten various foods and to eat a variety of foods themselves before they encounter any particular food for which they have a socially enhanced preference. Here the authors examine the stability of rats' socially learned food preferences following 6 days of potentially disruptive ingestive experiences. The authors found that 6 days of (a) eating unfamiliar foods, (b) interacting with demonstrators that had eaten unfamiliar foods, or (c) both eating unfamiliar foods and interacting with demonstrators that had eaten those foods had no measurable effect on rats' socially learned food preferences.