[Evaluation of courses in nursing science in Germany. A pilot project on the current state and on perspectives of future development]. / Evaluation pflegewissenschaftlicher Studiengänge in Deutschland. Ein Pilotprojekt zum gegenwärtigen Stand und zukünftigen Entwicklungsperspektiven.

Since 1991 more than 40 courses of nursing science have been established in Germany. They differ mainly in two aspects: a) they have different course contents and b) they belong to different faculties. This study focuses on two questions. (i) How is the integration of scientific knowledge proceeding? (ii) Which positive aspects and problems can be identified? For this purpose we used a questionnaire to ask heads of the faculties from all courses of nursing sciences. 32 questionnaires were returned. We have come to the conclusion that there is a broad scientific basis for courses of nursing science in Germany.

Young hippocampal neurons are critical for recent and remote spatial memory in adult mice.

New granule cells are continuously generated throughout adulthood in the mammalian hippocampus. These newly generated neurons become functionally integrated into existing hippocampal neuronal networks, such as those that support retrieval of remote spatial memory. Here, we sought to examine whether the contribution of newly born neurons depends on the type of learning and memory task in mice. To do so, we reduced neurogenesis with a cytostatic agent and examined whether depletion of young hippocampal neurons affects learning and/or memory in two hippocampal-dependent tasks (spatial navigation in the Morris water maze and object location test) and two hippocampal-independent tasks (cued navigation in the Morris water maze and novel object recognition). Double immunohistofluorescent labeling of the birth dating marker 5-bromo-2'deoxyuridine (BrdU) together with NeuN, a neuron specific marker, was employed to quantify reduction of hippocampal neurogenesis. We found that depletion of young adult-generated neurons alters recent and remote memory in spatial tasks but spares non-spatial tasks. Our findings provide additional evidence that generation of new cells in the adult brain is crucial for hippocampal-dependent cognitive functions.