Candida spp: manual identification (reference method) and automated identification (Vitek system platform)

Yeasts are becoming a common cause of nosocomial fungal infections that affect immunocompromised patients. Such infections can evolve into sepsis, whose mortality rate is high. This study aimed to evaluate the viability of Candida species identification by the automated system Vitek-Biomerieux (Durham, USA). Ninety-eight medical charts referencing the Candida spp. samples available for the study were retrospectively analyzed. The system Vitek-Biomerieux with Candida identification card is recommended for laboratory routine use and presents 80.6% agreement with the reference method. By separate analysis of species, 13.5% of C. parapsilosis samples differed from the reference method, while the Vitek system wrongly identified them as C. tropicalis, C. lusitaneae or as Candida albicans. C. glabrata presented a discrepancy of only one sample (25%), and was identified by Vitek as C. parapsilosis. C. guilliermondii also differed in only one sample (33.3%), being identified as Candida spp. All C. albicans, C. tropicalis and C. lusitaneae samples were identified correctly.

Role of the hippocampus in contextual memory after classical aversive conditioning in pigeons (C. livia)

We investigated the effects of hippocampal lesions with ibotenic acid (IBO) on the memory of the sound-context-shock association during reexposure to the conditioning context. Twenty-nine adult pigeons were assigned to a non-lesioned control group (CG, N = 7), a sham-lesioned group (SG, N = 7), a hippocampus-lesioned experimental group (EG, N = 7), and to an unpaired nonlesioned group (tone-alone exposure) (NG, N = 8). All pigeons were submitted to a 20-min session in the conditioning chamber with three associations of sound (1000 Hz, 85 dB, 1 s) and shock (10 mA, 1 s). Experimental and sham lesions were performed 24 h later (EG and SG) when EG birds received three bilateral injections (anteroposterior (A), 4.5, 5.25 and 7.0) of IBO (1 µl and 1 µg/µl) and SG received one bilateral injection (A, 5.25) of PBS. The animals were reexposed to the training context 5 days after the lesion. Behavior was videotaped for 20 min and analyzed at 30-s intervals. A significantly higher percent rating of immobility was observed for CG (median, 95.1; range, 79.2 to 100.0) and SG (median, 90.0; range, 69.6 to 95.0) compared to EG (median, 11.62; range, 3.83 to 50.1) and NG (median, 7.33; range, 6.2 to 28.1) (P<0.001) in the training context. These results suggest impairment of contextual fear in birds who received lesions one day after conditioning and a role for the hippocampus in the modulation of emotional aversive memories in pigeons