Blood urea nitrogen and serum bicarbonate in extremely low birth weight infants receiving higher protein intake in the first week after birth.

OBJECTIVE: To determine correlation between early protein administration and serum blood urea nitrogen (BUN) or bicarbonate (HCO(3)(-)) in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants during the first week of life. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective review of 154 ELBWs was conducted. Laboratory and nutritional data from postnatal days 1, 4 and 7 were collected. Repeated measures models estimated the relationship of protein intake with BUN and HCO(3)(-) in the first week of life. RESULT: In total, 359 separate BUN and HCO(3)(-) values were analyzed. Each gram per kilogram of protein administered was associated with an increase in mean BUN of 3.3 mg/dl. This effect decreased daily by 2.1 mg/dl. Each gram per kilogram of protein administered was associated with a decrease in mean HCO(3)(-) by 0.9 mmol/l. CONCLUSION: The association between protein load and BUN is positive but decreasing over time. Protein is associated with a clinically insignificant decrease in HCO(3)(-). Concerns regarding metabolic derangement from early protein administration in ELBWs are unwarranted.

Fluid regimens in the first week of life may increase risk of patent ductus arteriosus in extremely low birth weight infants.

BACKGROUND: High fluid volumes may increase neonatal morbidity. However, evidence supporting fluid restriction is inconclusive and restricting fluids may restrict caloric intake. OBJECTIVE: To determine if higher fluid intake was associated with increased risk of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) or bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants. STUDY DESIGN: A total of 204 ELBW (170 ml kg(-1) day(-1)) in the first days of life is associated with increased risk of PDA.

Analysis of rat EEG using autoregressive power spectra.

The main objective of this paper is to make the auto regressive (AR) power spectrum estimation method accessible to electrophysiologists and present some typical applications. The AR method is explained, choices of various parameters are explored and examples from the analysis of rat hippocampal EEG are given. We also provide the pseudocode for the computation of the AR coefficients and the AR spectrum. We compare the results from the AR method to the FFT-based power spectrum method and demonstrate the superiority of the AR method. We also show the differences in the spectra of the EEG of alcohol-preferring (P) and non-preferring (NP) rats in the baseline condition when no alcohol is infused. We found a statistically significant difference in peak theta frequency which was at 6.96 Hz for the P rats and at 7.74 Hz for the NP rats. There were also other observable differences in the shape of the spectra of the EEG of the P and NP rats.