“
“Purpose: We objectively quantified the gain in urethral diameter and the effect of stenting after tubularized incised plate urethroplasty in a rabbit hypospadias model.

Materials and Methods: We created a hypospadias model in 12 New Zealand white male rabbits by excising the ventral urethra. A 3 cm tattoo line was made longitudinally in the dorsal urethral plate midline. Two weeks later a 2 cm relaxing incision

was made in the middle part of the tattooed line. The stretched incision width between the tattooed edges was measured, followed by urethral plate tubularization. Six rabbits were selleck chemicals llc stented and 6 were nonstented. Two weeks later the animals were sacrificed and the distance separating the selleckchem tattoo was measured at the midpoint of the tattooed line. Transverse sections at this point were examined histologically.

Results: All animals survived the procedures. Stents were removed at 7 days in 4 rabbits and fell out in 2 at 4 and 2 days, respectively. The mean +/-

SD incision width of 5.5 +/- 1.6 mm (range 3 to 8) at tubularization became 2 +/- 0.5 mm (range 1 to 3) after healing (p <0.002). Mean width of the healed incision was 1.7 +/- 0.4 (range 1 to 2) vs 2.3 +/- 0.5 mm (range 1.5 to 3) in the nonstented and stented groups, respectively (p <0.06). Rabbits with a stenting duration of less than 7 days were excluded from the last analysis. Histologically all incisions healed completely with an intact epithelium.

Conclusions: The initial width of the midline relaxing incision significantly decreased after complete epithelialization. The average gain in urethral width was only 2 mm. Stenting appeared to increase the width of the healed incisions but not in a statistically significant manner.”
“A large body of evidence indicates that reactivation of aversive memories leads to protein synthesis-dependent memory reconsolidation which can be disrupted by cycloheximide and other protein synthesis inhibitors. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether cycloheximide would alter reconsolidation Ketotifen of the associations involving discrete cues

paired with a sweet reward in an appetitive instrumental task. Rats trained to lever press for 0.1% saccharin were repeatedly tested for cue-induced reinstatement of non-reinforced responding for saccharin. CHX (3 mg/kg, s.c.) or its vehicle was injected immediately after each reinstatement session. The protein synthesis inhibitor did not alter the ability of the saccharin-paired cues to reinstate saccharin seeking. The present results suggest that passive re-exposure to saccharin-paired discrete cues in the reinstatement procedure does not lead to any cycloheximide-sensitive reconsolidation of the original associations. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.”
“Current theories of consciousness posit a dissociation between ‘phenomenal’ consciousness (rich) and ‘access’ consciousness (limited).