Cholinergic input to the hippocampus is not required for a model of episodic memory in the rat, even with multiple consecutive events.

Previous work has shown that depletion of the cholinergic input to the hippocampus produces no impairment in an episodic (what-where-which) memory task in rats. However, in contrast a where-which task was significantly impaired. Models of acetylcholine function related to pattern separation were used to explain this result. Recent development of spontaneous recognition tasks to assess multiple trials consecutively in the same testing session allow an opportunity to assess whether an increase in interference produces an impairment in the episodic memory task using the same cholinergic lesion. By increasing the number of trials happening consecutively the proactive interference between events being remembered increases, with the prediction that a reduction in pattern separation as a result of reduced acetylcholine in the hippocampus would now produce an impairment in this task. We show that a continual trials approach to the episodic memory task has no impact on the effects of cholinergic depletion of the hippocampus, with effects mirroring those from using just one trial a day approaches to these tasks. We suggest that pattern separation models of acetylcholine function can still explain our findings, but with an apparent emphasis on context-specific locations rather than all types of memory.

Hermaphroditism in the dash-and-dot goatfish Parupeneus barberinus.

Presence of bisexual individuals and a sex-specific bimodal size distribution are suggestive of protogyny in the dash-and-dot goatfish Parupeneus barberinus, but the most parsimonious interpretation of histological analysis is juvenile hermaphroditism. This is the first report of hermaphroditism in the Mullidae.

Audit of cardiac pathology detection using a criteria-based perioperative echocardiography service.

Transthoracic echocardiography is often used to screen patients prior to non-cardiac surgery to detect conditions associated with perioperative haemodynamic compromise and to stratify risk. However, anaesthetists' use of echocardiography is quite variable. A consortium led by the American College of Cardiology Foundation has developed appropriate use criteria for echocardiography. At Joondalup Hospital in Western Australia, we have used these criteria to order echocardiographic studies in patients attending our anaesthetic pre-admission clinic. We undertook this audit to determine the incidence of significant echocardiographic findings using this approach. In a 22-month period, 606 transthoracic echocardiographic studies were performed. This represented 8.7% of clinic attendees and 1.7% of all surgical patients. In about two-thirds of the patients, the indication for echocardiography was identified on the basis of a telephone screening questionnaire. The most common indications were poor exercise tolerance (27.4%), ischaemic heart disease (20.9%) and cardiac murmurs (16.3%). Over 26% of patients studied had significant cardiac pathology (i.e. moderate or severe echocardiographic findings), most importantly moderate or severe aortic stenosis (8.6%), poor left ventricular function (7.1%), a regional wall motion abnormality (4.3%) or moderate or severe mitral regurgitation (4.1%). Using appropriate use criteria to guide ordering transthoracic echocardiography studies led to a high detection rate of clinically important cardiac pathology in our perioperative service.

Does assimilation into schemas involve systems or cellular consolidation? It's not just time.

A comment by Rudy and Sutherland [Rudy, J. R., & Sutherland, R. J. (2008). Is it systems or cellular consolidation? Time will tell. An alternative interpretation of the Morris Group's recent Science Paper. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory] has suggested an alternative account of recent findings concerning very rapid systems consolidation as described in a recent paper by Tse et al [Tse, D., Langston, R. F., Kakeyama, M., Bethus, I., Spooner, P. A., & Wood, E. R., et al. (2007). Schemas and memory consolidation. Science, 316, 76-82]. This is to suppose that excitotoxic lesions of the hippocampus cause transient disruptive neural activity outside the target structure that interferes with cellular consolidation in the cortex. We disagree with this alternative interpretation of our findings and cite relevant data in our original paper indicating why this proposal is unlikely. Various predictions of the two accounts are nonetheless outlined, together with the types of experiments needed to resolve the issue of whether systems consolidation can occur very rapidly when guided by activated neural schemas.

Post-training N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor blockade offers protection from retrograde interference but does not affect consolidation of weak or strong memory traces in the water maze.

Memory consolidation is the process where labile memory traces become long-lasting, stable memories. Previous work has demonstrated that spatial memory consolidation, several days after training in a water maze had ceased, can be disrupted by a temporary intra hippocampal infusion of the alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid/kainate antagonist LY326325 (Riedel et al., 1999). Such reversible pharmacological techniques offer advantages over the permanent lesion studies that had first suggested a role for the hippocampus in memory consolidation. However, to date the role of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in such systems level processes remains controversial with evidence for impairments and augmentation of performance. Here we investigate the role of post-training hippocampal N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor blockade in rats and mice on the consolidation of weak and strong memory traces using an Atlantis water maze protocol. A hidden Atlantis platform was employed and rats (experiments 1 and 2) and mice (experiment 3) were required to dwell within 20 cm of the trained location to activate and subsequently reveal the escape platform. In experiments 1 and 3 a strong memory trace was established by training rats or mice for several days in the water maze. In experiment 2 a significantly weaker trace was instituted by reducing the training period. N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor blockade was induced after the last training trial and continued for seven days. Reliable memory for the trained platform location in a retention test 15 days after the last training day demonstrated that N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor blockade did not affect memory consolidation in rats or mice. Our results also show that post-training N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor blockade can lead to better performance in further retention tests conducted after the consolidation and drug administration period. Those data suggest that specific post-training N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor blockade does not impair memory consolidation and it may also offer a memory trace mild protection from retrograde interference.

Glutamate-receptor-mediated encoding and retrieval of paired-associate learning.

Paired-associate learning is often used to examine episodic memory in humans. Animal models include the recall of food-cache locations by scrub jays and sequential memory. Here we report a model in which rats encode, during successive sample trials, two paired associates (flavours of food and their spatial locations) and display better-than-chance recall of one item when cued by the other. In a first study, pairings of a particular foodstuff and its location were never repeated, so ensuring unique 'what-where' attributes. Blocking N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors in the hippocampus--crucial for the induction of certain forms of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity--impaired memory encoding but had no effect on recall. Inactivating hippocampal neural activity by blocking alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA) receptors impaired both encoding and recall. In a second study, two paired associates were trained repeatedly over 8 weeks in new pairs, but blocking of hippocampal AMPA receptors did not affect their recall. Thus we conclude that unique what-where paired associates depend on encoding and retrieval within a hippocampal memory space, with consolidation of the memory traces representing repeated paired associates in circuits elsewhere.

Particulate emission rates for unpaved shoulders along a paved road.

This paper reports the first empirical estimate of particle emissions from unpaved shoulders along paved roads. Its objectives are to develop and demonstrate an emission rate measurement methodology that can be applied in different areas; identify the mechanisms that suspend dust from unpaved shoulders and the observables related to this suspension process; and quantify PM10 mass emissions in the form of an emission rate. To achieve these objectives, fast-response observations from nephelometers and a sonic anemometer were used to characterize short-lived dust plumes generated by passing vehicles. In addition, detailed soil surface measurements determined the mechanical properties of the shoulder surfaces. Large traffic-induced turbulence events that led to significant dust entrainment were almost exclusively caused by "large" vehicles such as trucks, semis, and vehicles pulling trailers, all traveling 50-65 mph. PM10 emission rates for these large, fast-traveling vehicles were determined to be 8 +/- 4 grams per vehicle kilometer traveled under dry conditions. Emissions due to smaller vehicles such as cars, vans, and sport utility vehicles were negligible for normal on-road driving. These results indicate that the majority of PM10 emissions from unpaved shoulders is caused by relatively few vehicles.

Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus endophthalmitis after cataract surgery with intraocular vancomycin.

PURPOSE: We studied a case of postoperative coagulase-negative Staphylococcus endophthalmitis in a 79-year-old man who had undergone cataract extraction in which vancomycin had been used intraoperatively in the infusion fluid. METHODS: The medical records were reviewed for the clinical history, ocular findings, and the vitreous and anterior chamber culture results. RESULTS: Acute, postoperative coagulase-negative Staphylococcus endophthalmitis developed in the patient in whom vancomycin had been used intraoperatively in the infusion fluid. CONCLUSIONS: Restraint is urged in the prophylactic use of vancomycin in the infusion fluids.