General anesthesia does not have persistent effects on attention in rodents

Background: Studies in animals have shown that general anesthesia can cause persistent spatial memory impairment, but the influence of anesthetics on other cognitive functions is unclear. This study tested whether exposure to general anesthesia without surgery caused a persistent deficit in attention in rodents.Methods: To evaluate whether anesthesia has persistent effects on attention, rats were randomized to three groups. Group A was exposed for 2 h to isoflurane anesthesia, and tested the following seven days for attentional deficits. Group B was used as a control and received room air before attentional testing. Since there is some evidence that a subanesthetic dose of ketamine can improve cognition and reduce disorders of attention after surgery, rats in group C were exposed to isoflurane anesthesia in combination with a ketamine injection before cognitive assessment. Attention was measured in rats using the 5-Choice Serial Reaction Time Task, for which animals were trained to respond with a nose poke on a touchscreen to a brief, unpredictable visual stimulus in one of five possible grid locations to receive a food reward. Attention was analyzed as % accuracy, % omission, and premature responses.Results: Evaluating acute attention by comparing baseline values with data from the day after intervention did not reveal any differences in attentional measurements. No significant differences were seen in % accuracy, % omission, and premature responses for the three groups tested for 7 consecutive days.Conclusion: These data in healthy rodents suggest that general anesthesia without surgery has no persistent effect on attention and the addition of ketamine does not alter the outcome

Study protocol: a randomised controlled trial investigating the effect of exercise training on peripheral blood gene expression in patients with stable angina

Background: Exercise training has been shown to reduce angina and promote collateral vessel development in patients with coronary artery disease. However, the mechanism whereby exercise exerts these beneficial effects is unclear. There has been increasing interest in the use of whole genome peripheral blood gene expression in a wide range of conditions to attempt to identify both novel mechanisms of disease and transcriptional biomarkers. This protocol describes a study in which we will assess the effect of a structured exercise programme on peripheral blood gene expression in patients with stable angina, and correlate this with changes in angina level, anxiety, depression, and exercise capacity. Methods/Design: Sixty patients with stable angina will be recruited and randomised 1: 1 to exercise training or conventional care. Patients randomised to exercise training will attend an exercise physiology laboratory up to three times weekly for supervised aerobic interval training sessions of one hour in total duration. Patients will undergo assessments of angina, anxiety, depression, and peripheral blood gene expression at baseline, after six and twelve weeks of training, and twelve weeks after formal exercise training ceases. Discussion: This study will provide comprehensive data on the effect of exercise training on peripheral blood gene expression in patients with angina. By correlating this with improvement in angina status we will identify candidate peripheral blood transcriptional markers predictive of improvements in angina level in response to exercise training

Communications Biophysics

Contains reports on five research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant G-16526)National Institutes of Health (Grant MH-04737-02)

Secondary Prevention Through Cardiac Rehabilitation: Position Paper of the Working Group on Cardiac Rehabilitation and Exercise Physiology of the European Society of Cardiology

The purpose of this statement is to provide specific recommendations in regard to evaluation and intervention in each of the core components of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) to assist CR staff in the design and development of their programmes; the statement should also assist health care providers, insurers, policy makers and consumers in the recognition of the comprehensive nature of such programmes. Those charged with responsibility for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, whether at European, at national or at individual centre level, need to consider where and how structured programmes of CR can be delivered to the large constituency of patients now considered eligible for C

Development of Animal Models to Test the Fundamental Basis of Gene–Environment Interactions

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93738/1/oby.2008.513.pd

Islands of change vs. islands of disaster: Managing pigs and birds in the Anthropocene of the North Atlantic

The offshore islands of the North Atlantic were among some of the last settled places on earth, with humans reaching the Faroes and Iceland in the late Iron Age and Viking period. While older accounts emphasizing deforestation and soil erosion have presented this story of island colonization as yet another social–ecological disaster, recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research combined with environmental history, environmental humanities, and bioscience is providing a more complex understanding of long-term human ecodynamics in these northern islands. An ongoing interdisciplinary investigation of the management of domestic pigs and wild bird populations in Faroes and Iceland is presented as an example of sustained resource management using local and traditional knowledge to create structures for successful wild fowl management on the millennial scale

Sprint interval and sprint continuous training increases circulating CD34+ cells and cardio-respiratory fitness in young healthy women

The improvement of vascular health in the exercising limb can be attained by sprint interval training (SIT). However, the effects on systemic vascular function and on circulating angiogenic cells (CACs) which may contribute to endothelial repair have not been investigated. Additionally, a comparison between SIT and sprint continuous training (SCT) which is less time committing has not been made

Soleus Muscle as a Surrogate for Health Status in Human Heart Failure

We propose the hypothesis that soleus muscle function may provide a surrogate measure of functional capacity in patients with heart failure. We summarize literature pertaining to skeletal muscle as a locus of fatigue and present our recent findings, using in vivo imaging in combination with biomechanical experimentation and modeling, to reveal novel structure-function relationships in chronic heart failure skeletal muscle and gait

Communications Biophysics

Contains reports on five research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant G-16526)National Institutes of Health (Grant MH-04737-02