The incidence of unpleasant dreams after sub-anaesthetic ketamine

Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)receptor antagonist with psychotogenic effects and for whichthere are diverse reports of whether pleasant or unpleasantdreams result during anaesthesia, post-operatively or aftersub-anaesthetic use. The aim was to assess in healthy volunteers the incidence ofunpleasant dreams over the three nights after receiving asub-anaesthetic dose of ketamine, in comparison to placebo,and with retrospective home nightmare frequency as acovariate.Thirty healthy volunteers completed questionnairesabout retrospective home dream recall and were then giveneither ketamine or placebo. Ketamine resulted in significantly more meandream unpleasantness relative to placebo and caused athreefold increase in the odds ratio for the incidence of anunpleasant dream. The number of dreams reported over thethree nights did not differ between the groups. Theincidence of unpleasant dreams after ketamine use waspredicted by retrospectively assessed nightmare frequencyat home.Ketamine causes unpleasant dreams over thethree post-administration nights. This may be evidence of aresidual psychotogenic effect that is not found on standardself-report symptomatology measures or a result of disturbedsleep electrophysiology. The results have theoretical implications for the relationship between nightmares and schizotypy

Improvements of the Jena AMS system

A new slit stabilization circuit and a modified generator drive were installed on an AMS system based on a 3 MV Tandetron (TM), produced by High Voltage Engineering Europa (HVEE). Furthermore our test procedure used at the Jena AMS system for the rectifiers of the Cockroft-Walton generator is presented. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V

Ion source improvements at the Jena ¹⁴C-AMS facility

We report on an ongoing program of improvements of the Jena AMS system. The present contribution focuses on the improvement of the High Voltage Engineering Europe (HVEE) ion source 846. Furthermore it is described how the usable current range is determined at the Jena lab

ROMAP: Rosetta Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor

The scientific objectives, design and capabilities of the Rosetta Lander’s ROMAP instrument are presented. ROMAP’s main scientific goals are longterm magnetic field and plasma measurements of the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in order to study cometary activity as a function of heliocentric distance, and measurements during the Lander’s descent to investigate the structure of the comet’s remanent magnetisation. The ROMAP fluxgate magnetometer, electrostatic analyser and Faraday cup measure the magnetic field from 0 to 32 Hz, ions of up to 8000 keV and electrons of up to 4200 keV. Additional two types of pressure sensors – Penning and Minipirani – cover a pressure range from 108 to 101 mbar. ROMAP’s sensors and electronics are highly integrated, as required by a combined field/plasma instrument with less than 1 W power consumption and 1 kg mass