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“Exposure to an enriched environment (EE) enhances neurogenesis and regulates emotionality. Previous reports have revealed that the rate of neurogenesis can be influenced by various environmental, endocrine, SGC-CBP30 supplier and pharmacologic stimuli. Chronic pain is a debilitating disease state characterized by complex alterations in both peripheral and central nociceptive pathways. In the present

study, we evaluated the effect of chronic pain on environmental enrichment-induced hippocampal neurogenesis. Nerve-ligated mice were housed either in a standard environment or in the EE for 4 weeks. EE increased the immunoreactivity for doublecortin (DCX), a marker for immature neuron-positive cells, in the dentate gyrus (DG). Furthermore, the number of NeuroD (a neurogenic basic helix-loop-helix factor)-positive cells, in the DG was clearly increased by EE. Under these conditions, chronic pain suppressed Torin 1 cost enriched environment-mediated induction of both DCX- and NeuroD-labeled cells. These results suggest that chronic pain has stress-like damaging modulatory effects on hippocampal neurogenesis.

(C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Purpose: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a leading cause of nosocomial respiratory tract, urinary tract and skin infections. Data are sparse on the antimicrobial resistance of P. aeruginosa in Egypt. We sought to detect and compare the antimicrobial susceptibility of P. aeruginosa isolates from respiratory tract, urinary tract and skin infections at 3 Egyptian hospitals.

Materials and Methods: Minimum inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics were determined by the agar dilution method.

Results: P. aeruginosa respiratory

tract infections isolates were 100% resistant to ampicillin, ampicillin/sulbactam, amoxicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanate and chloramphenicol, highly resistant to cefuroxime (89%), tetracycline (89%) and azithromycin (84%), and susceptible to norfloxacin (89%), amikacin (84%) and meropenem (68%). P. aeruginosa urinary tract infection isolates were 100% Thiamet G resistant to ampicillin, amoxicillin, chloramphenicol, cefuroxime and tetracycline, highly resistant to amoxicillin/clavulanate (95%), azithromycin (95%), cefalexin (91%) and ampicillin/sulbactam (82%), and susceptible to amikacin (82%), meropenem (73%) and norfloxacin (64%). P. aeruginosa skin infection isolates were 100% resistant to ampicillin and amoxicillin, highly resistant to tetracycline (95%), amoxicillin/clavulanate (95%), cefalexin (87%) and azithromycin (84%), and susceptible to amikacin (87%), norfloxacin (71%) and meropenem (68%). The anti-pseudomonal effect of antibiotics varied among different infection sites only for ampicillin/sulbactam, cefoperazone or chloramphenicol but not with the other tested antibiotics.

Conclusions: Norfloxacin and amikacin could be used for initial therapy for P. aeruginosa mediated respiratory tract infections.