Factors associated with complications of foreign body ingestion and/or aspiration in children from a Peruvian hospital.

Objective: To determine the factors associated with complications of foreign body ingestion and/or aspiration in children from a hospital in the Peruvian social security program. Materials and methods: An observational, retrospective, analytical, and transverse study was undertaken. Medical records of patients under the age of 14 years old, who were admitted to the National Hospital Edgardo Rebagliati Martins between January 2013 and May 2017, and treated with a diagnosis of foreign body in the digestive or respiratory tract, were selected. Variables that characterized the foreign body ingestion and/or aspiration were assessed. STATA v11.1 was used for all subsequent statistical analyzes. Results: A total of 322 cases met the inclusion criteria and the median age of the cohort was 4 years old (interquartile range: 2-6). The most frequently ingested foreign bodies were coins (∼59%) and batteries (∼10%). Fifty-four cases (∼17%) were classed as having a complication. In the multivariate analysis, we observed that the frequency of complications increased when the ingested object was a battery (adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR): 2.89; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.52-3.32; p-value<0.001), when the time elapsed prior to diagnosis was 8-16 h (aPR: 2.23; 95% CI: 2.18-2.28; p-value<0.001), and when the child was male (aPR: 1.85; 95% CI: 1.24-2.74; p-value = 0.002). However, the frequency decreased in cases where foreign bodies were lodged in the nose (aPR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.97-0.98; p-value<0.001). Conclusions: Whilst the most frequently ingested foreign bodies in this study were coins, complications were more common in cases of battery ingestion and in those where the diagnosis was made after 8 h.

Prevalence of infectious diseases and its associated factors among the blood donors of the Honduran Red Cross - Northern Region between 2014 and 2016.

INTRODUCTION: A number of parenteral infections in third-world countries are caused by blood transfusions. Our objective was to determine the prevalence of and factors associated with infected blood obtained by the Honduran Red Cross through blood donations, to ensure the safety of the donated blood. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study used a cross-sectional analytical design based on the secondary analysis of data. Information on blood donors from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, between 2014 and 2016 were obtained from the database of the Honduran Red Cross. Data analysis was performed in two phases. The first phase described the variables, with the values presented as frequencies and percentages for categorical variables. The second phase involved a statistical analysis using generalized linear models. RESULTS: The proportions of donors who tested positive for syphilis, core hepatitis, hepatitis B, human T-cell lymphotropic virus, human immunodeficiency virus, and hepatitis C infections were 45% (n = 447), 35% (348), 11% (105), 10% (97), 6% (59), and 3% (24), respectively. The results of multivariate analysis demonstrated that the number of women positive for HIV infection was lower than that of men (p = 0.006). Older participants were more likely to be positive for core hepatitis (p = 0.029) and syphilis (p<0.001) infection but less likely to be positive for hepatitis B (p<0.001), hepatitis C (p = 0.027), human immunodeficiency virus (p<0.001), and human T-cell lymphotropic virus (p<0.001) infection compared to younger participants. Replacement donors had an increased likelihood of positivity for core hepatitis (p = 0.003) infections but a decreased likelihood of positivity for human T-cell lymphotropic virus infection (p = 0.001). DISCUSSION: The high prevalence of infectious diseases in Honduras warrants the need for monitoring donated blood to prevent infected blood from being provided for transfusions. Furthermore, education efforts through the creation of prevention programs are necessary to educate the Honduran population, especially younger individuals, about transfusion-transmissible infections.

Transsynaptic Tracing from Peripheral Targets with Pseudorabies Virus Followed by Cholera Toxin and Biotinylated Dextran Amines Double Labeling.

Transsynaptic tracing has become a powerful tool used to analyze central efferents that regulate peripheral targets through multi-synaptic circuits. This approach has been most extensively used in the brain by utilizing the swine pathogen pseudorabies virus (PRV)(1). PRV does not infect great apes, including humans, so it is most commonly used in studies on small mammals, especially rodents. The pseudorabies strain PRV152 expresses the enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) reporter gene and only crosses functional synapses retrogradely through the hierarchical sequence of synaptic connections away from the infection site(2,3). Other PRV strains have distinct microbiological properties and may be transported in both directions (PRV-Becker and PRV-Kaplan)(4,5). This protocol will deal exclusively with PRV152. By delivering the virus at a peripheral site, such as muscle, it is possible to limit the entry of the virus into the brain through a specific set of neurons. The resulting pattern of eGFP signal throughout the brain then resolves the neurons that are connected to the initially infected cells. As the distributed nature of transsynaptic tracing with pseudorabies virus makes interpreting specific connections within an identified network difficult, we present a sensitive and reliable method employing biotinylated dextran amines (BDA) and cholera toxin subunit b (CTb) for confirming the connections between cells identified using PRV152. Immunochemical detection of BDA and CTb with peroxidase and DAB (3, 3'-diaminobenzidine) was chosen because they are effective at revealing cellular processes including distal dendrites(6-11).

Mouse vocal communication system: are ultrasounds learned or innate?

Mouse ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are often used as behavioral readouts of internal states, to measure effects of social and pharmacological manipulations, and for behavioral phenotyping of mouse models for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. However, little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms of rodent USV production. Here we discuss the available data to assess whether male mouse song behavior and the supporting brain circuits resemble those of known vocal non-learning or vocal learning species. Recent neurobiology studies have demonstrated that the mouse USV brain system includes motor cortex and striatal regions, and that the vocal motor cortex sends a direct sparse projection to the brainstem vocal motor nucleus ambiguous, a projection previously thought be unique to humans among mammals. Recent behavioral studies have reported opposing conclusions on mouse vocal plasticity, including vocal ontogeny changes in USVs over early development that might not be explained by innate maturation processes, evidence for and against a role for auditory feedback in developing and maintaining normal mouse USVs, and evidence for and against limited vocal imitation of song pitch. To reconcile these findings, we suggest that the trait of vocal learning may not be dichotomous but encompass a broad spectrum of behavioral and neural traits we call the continuum hypothesis, and that mice possess some of the traits associated with a capacity for limited vocal learning.

Of mice, birds, and men: the mouse ultrasonic song system has some features similar to humans and song-learning birds.

Humans and song-learning birds communicate acoustically using learned vocalizations. The characteristic features of this social communication behavior include vocal control by forebrain motor areas, a direct cortical projection to brainstem vocal motor neurons, and dependence on auditory feedback to develop and maintain learned vocalizations. These features have so far not been found in closely related primate and avian species that do not learn vocalizations. Male mice produce courtship ultrasonic vocalizations with acoustic features similar to songs of song-learning birds. However, it is assumed that mice lack a forebrain system for vocal modification and that their ultrasonic vocalizations are innate. Here we investigated the mouse song system and discovered that it includes a motor cortex region active during singing, that projects directly to brainstem vocal motor neurons and is necessary for keeping song more stereotyped and on pitch. We also discovered that male mice depend on auditory feedback to maintain some ultrasonic song features, and that sub-strains with differences in their songs can match each other's pitch when cross-housed under competitive social conditions. We conclude that male mice have some limited vocal modification abilities with at least some neuroanatomical features thought to be unique to humans and song-learning birds. To explain our findings, we propose a continuum hypothesis of vocal learning.