Acute respiratory failure among lung transplant adults requiring intensive care: Changing spectrum of causative organisms and impact of procalcitonin test in the diagnostic workup.

Background: The aim was to identify the causing organisms and assess the association of procalcitonin (PCT) with bacterial pneumonia within 24 hours of intensive care unit admission (ICU-A) among lung transplant (LT) adult recipients.

Methods: Secondary analysis from a prospective cohort study. All LT adults admitted to ICU for acute respiratory failure (ARF) over 5 years were included.

Mechanical ventilation in pediatric intensive care units during the season for acute lower respiratory infection: a multicenter study.

Objective: To describe the characteristics and outcomes of mechanical ventilation in pediatric intensive care units during the season of acute lower respiratory infections.

Design: Prospective cohort of infants and children receiving mechanical ventilation for at least 12 hrs.

Setting: Sixty medical-surgical pediatric intensive care units.

Enduring effects of environmental enrichment from weaning to adulthood on pituitary-adrenal function, pre-pulse inhibition and learning in male and female rats.

Environmental enrichment (EE) increases stimulation and provides richer sensory, cognitive and motor opportunities through the interaction with the social and physical environment. EE produces a wide range of neuroanatomical, neurochemical and behavioural effects in several animal species. However, the effects of EE have mainly been studied shortly after the treatment, so its long-lasting effects remain to be elucidated.

Serotonin depletion impairs waiting but not stop-signal reaction time in rats: implications for theories of the role of 5-HT in behavioral inhibition.

Central serotonin (5-HT) function is thought to be a critical component of behavioral inhibition and impulse control. However, in recent clinical studies, 5-HT manipulations failed to affect stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), which is a fundamental process in behavioral inhibition. We investigated the effect of central 5-HT depletion (intracerebroventricular 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine) in rats on two aspects of behavioral inhibition, SSRT and 'waiting', using the stop-signal task.

Nucleus accumbens D2/3 receptors predict trait impulsivity and cocaine reinforcement.

Stimulant addiction is often linked to excessive risk taking, sensation seeking, and impulsivity, but in ways that are poorly understood. We report here that a form of impulsivity in rats predicts high rates of intravenous cocaine self-administration and is associated with changes in dopamine (DA) function before drug exposure. Using positron emission tomography, we demonstrated that D2/3 receptor availability is significantly reduced in the nucleus accumbens of impulsive rats that were never exposed to cocaine and that such effects are independent of DA release.

The nursing work process in care for healthy children at a social security institution in Mexico.

We aimed to analyze the nursing work process directed at care in the Nutrition, Growth and Development Surveillance and Control Program (VNCD) for children under five years at a social security institution in Mexico. The study adopted a qualitative approach and was based on the work category, on conceptions of the work process in health and on institutional analysis. We carried out direct systematic observations and interviews with a group of nurses and their assistants and with mothers who attended nursing appointments with their children.

Enduring deficits in sustained visual attention during withdrawal of intravenous methylenedioxymethamphetamine self-administration in rats: results from a comparative study with d-amphetamine and methamphetamine.

Although amphetamine-derived stimulants are widely associated with neurotoxicity, it is poorly understood whether extended exposure to such drugs produces lasting effects on neurocognitive function. This study investigates whether chronically self-administered d-amphetamine, methamphetamine (MA), or methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) leads to residual deficits in a rodent test of sustained visual attention and impulsivity. Rats were trained on a five-choice serial reaction time task and subsequently trained to self-administer d-amphetamine, MA, or MDMA (all 50 microg/infusion), intravenously, for 3 weeks.

Environmental enrichment effects in social investigation in rats are gender dependent.

Environmental enrichment (E) can change neuronal structure, improves learning in various tasks and increases cerebral plasticity. However, no E effects were found in a test measuring social olfactory discrimination memory and, although they have been mainly measured in males, gender differences have been reported in other tests. The aims of the present study were to evaluate gender differential effects of E in the social discrimination paradigm which also involves social olfactory discrimination and in the elevated plus-maze test (EPM) for measuring anxiety.

Attentional and motivational deficits in rats withdrawn from intravenous self-administration of cocaine or heroin.

Rationale: Identifying the long-term neurocognitive sequelae of drug addiction may have important implications for understanding the compulsive, chronically relapsing nature of this brain disorder.

Objectives: Our aim was to investigate the consequences of chronic intravenous self-administration of cocaine or heroin on visual attentional processes in rats.

Methods: Adult male rats were pretrained on a five-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT) of sustained visual attention and impulsivity and later trained to self-administer cocaine or heroin intravenously during multiple 'long-access' self-administration cycles.

Unusual mixed gonadal dysgenesis associated with Müllerian duct persistence, polygonadia, and a 45,X/46,X,idic(Y)(p) karyotype.

Mixed gonadal dysgenesis (MGD) is a developmental anomaly in which most of the patients have a dysgenetic testis, a contralateral streak and a 45,X/46,XY karyotype. This entity involves an heterogeneous group of gonadal and phenotypic abnormalities with a wide clinical spectrum. The phenotype depends on the ratio of testicular tissue which induces virilization.