Prevalence of Chlamydia and Gonorrhea Among Pregnant Adolescents Screened in the Third Trimester Using a Urine PCR Test: A Retrospective Review.

OBJECTIVE: Our study assessed the rate of new and recurrent Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae infections in the third trimester at an adolescent obstetrics clinic. METHOD: Between October 2016 and June 2020, routine third-trimester screening for C. trachomatis and N. gonorrhoeae was implemented according to new Canadian recommendations. Urine nucleic acid amplification was performed. Patient records were reviewed retrospectively, and demographic data; pregnancy and delivery characteristics; and information on screening at presentation to care, third-trimester screening (33-38 weeks), and other STI testing was recorded. RESULTS: A total of 115 adolescents (mean age 17.90 ± 1.43 y) with 125 pregnancies presented for care. Twenty-three pregnancies were excluded (12 transferred out and 11 experienced a pregnancy loss). At presentation, screening was performed in 100 of 102 pregnancies: 64 of 100 at <13 weeks, 32 of 100 at 13-27 weeks, and 4 of 100 at 28-30 weeks. Nine tested positive for C. trachomatis and none tested positive for N. gonorrhoeae. In the third trimester, there were 3 positive C. trachomatis tests, but all were indicated: test of cure was due for 1 patient, 1 patient had a new sexual partner, and 1 patient presented with symptoms. The remaining 89 of 102 pregnancies were screened (with no other indication) and none were positive for C. trachomatis or N. gonorrhoeae. Ten patients could not be sampled (5 missed, 4 pre-term deliveries, and 1 non-compliant with testing). CONCLUSION: No cases of C. trachomatis or N. gonorrhoeae infection were identified on third-trimester screening in our study. Adolescent obstetrics providers implementing Canadian screening guidelines may want to monitor their screening results to determine whether their yield warrants universal implementation.

Audiovisual Temporal Processing and Synchrony Perception in the Rat.

Extensive research on humans has improved our understanding of how the brain integrates information from our different senses, and has begun to uncover the brain regions and large-scale neural activity that contributes to an observer's ability to perceive the relative timing of auditory and visual stimuli. In the present study, we developed the first behavioral tasks to assess the perception of audiovisual temporal synchrony in rats. Modeled after the parameters used in human studies, separate groups of rats were trained to perform: (1) a simultaneity judgment task in which they reported whether audiovisual stimuli at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) were presented simultaneously or not; and (2) a temporal order judgment task in which they reported whether they perceived the auditory or visual stimulus to have been presented first. Furthermore, using in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the lateral extrastriate visual (V2L) cortex of anesthetized rats, we performed the first investigation of how neurons in the rat multisensory cortex integrate audiovisual stimuli presented at different SOAs. As predicted, rats (n = 7) trained to perform the simultaneity judgment task could accurately (~80%) identify synchronous vs. asynchronous (200 ms SOA) trials. Moreover, the rats judged trials at 10 ms SOA to be synchronous, whereas the majority (~70%) of trials at 100 ms SOA were perceived to be asynchronous. During the temporal order judgment task, rats (n = 7) perceived the synchronous audiovisual stimuli to be "visual first" for ~52% of the trials, and calculation of the smallest timing interval between the auditory and visual stimuli that could be detected in each rat (i.e., the just noticeable difference (JND)) ranged from 77 ms to 122 ms. Neurons in the rat V2L cortex were sensitive to the timing of audiovisual stimuli, such that spiking activity was greatest during trials when the visual stimulus preceded the auditory by 20-40 ms. Ultimately, given that our behavioral and electrophysiological results were consistent with studies conducted on human participants and previous recordings made in multisensory brain regions of different species, we suggest that the rat represents an effective model for studying audiovisual temporal synchrony at both the neuronal and perceptual level.