Objective. Few studies describe changes in students' class preparation, note-taking, and examination preparation over the course of professional school. This study aims to describe the use of these learning and study strategies by pharmacy students and to analyze changes during their education.Methods. We performed a prospective, observational cohort study of students at a single US pharmacy school from 2016-2019. Students completed an online survey on learning and study strategies at the beginning of each school year. Quantitative results were analyzed by level in pharmacy school during which the survey was completed as the primary predictor. Open-ended responses were thematically analyzed using an inductive approach.Results. We observed significant changes in strategies, including an increased use of audiovisual materials for course preparation, preference for electronic over manual notetaking, increasing use of lecture capture viewing, and increased use of peer materials in studying. Changes were generally largest between students' first (P1) and second (P2) years in pharmacy school, representing adjustments in student behaviors during the P1 year. In some cases, changes from the surveys in the P1 to P2 years were followed by a gradual return toward P1 survey levels. Three themes described students' comments: students' preferences shaped their learning strategies, their experiences guided changes in learning strategies, and they used additional strategies beyond those included in the survey items.Conclusions. Significant changes in pharmacy student study strategies occurred over the course of their education. This may represent an opportunity to promote use of more effective approaches for long-term learning.

Physical exercise is a powerful modulator of learning and memory. Mechanisms underlying the cognitive benefits of exercise are well documented in adult rodents. Exercise studies targeting postnatal periods of hippocampal maturation (specifically targeting periods of synaptic reorganization and plasticity) are lacking. We characterize a model of early-life exercise (ELE) in male and female mice designed with the goal of identifying critical periods by which exercise may have a lasting impact on hippocampal memory and synaptic plasticity. Mice freely accessed a running wheel during three postnatal periods: the 4^th postnatal week (juvenile ELE, P21-27), 6^th postnatal week (adolescent ELE, P35-41), or 4^th-6^th postnatal weeks (juvenile-adolescent ELE, P21-41). All exercise groups increased their running distances during ELE. When exposed to a subthreshold learning stimulus, juv ELE and juv-adol ELE formed lasting long-term memory for an object location memory task, whereas sedentary and adol ELE mice did not. Electrophysiological experiments revealed enhanced long-term potentiation in hippocampal CA1 in the juvenile-adolescent ELE group. I/O curves were also significantly modulated in all mice that underwent ELE. Our results suggest that early-life exercise, specifically during the 4^th postnatal week, can enable hippocampal memory, synaptic plasticity, and alter hippocampal excitability when occurring during postnatal periods of hippocampal maturation.

Background

Oxycodone has an elevated abuse liability profile compared to other prescription opioid medications. However, many human and rodent metabolomics studies have not been specifically focused on oxycodone.

Objectives

Investigating metabolomics changes associated with oxycodone exposure can provide insights into biochemical mechanisms of the addiction cycle and prognosis prediction.

Methods

Plasma samples from 16 rats at pre-exposure and intoxication time points were profiled on the Metabolon platform. A total of 941 metabolites were characterized. We employed a k-Nearest Neighbor imputation to impute metabolites with low levels of missingness and binarized metabolites with moderate levels of missingness, respectively.

Results

Of the 136 binarized metabolites, 6 showed differential abundance (FDR < 0.05), including 5 that were present at pre-exposure but absent at intoxication (e.g., adenine), while linoleamide (18:2n6) exhibited the opposite behavior. Among the 798 metabolites with low levels of missingness, 364 showed significant changes between pre-exposure and intoxication (FDR < 0.01), including succinate, oleamide, and sarcosine. We identified four pathways, including tryptophan metabolism, that were nominally enriched among the metabolites that change with oxycodone exposure (p < 0.05). Furthermore, we identified several metabolites that showed nominal correlations with the Addiction Index (composite of oxycodone behaviors): 17 at pre-exposure and 8 at intoxication. In addition, the changes in abundance between pre-exposure and intoxication time points of 9 metabolites were nominally correlated with the Addiction Index, including sphingomyelins, methylhistidines, and glycerols.

Conclusions

In summary, not only were we able to capture oxy-induced changes in metabolic pathways using easily accessible blood samples, but we also demonstrated the potential of blood metabolomics to better understand addiction liability.

The authors have withdrawn their manuscript owing to massive revision and data validation. Therefore, the authors do not wish this work to be cited as reference for the project. If you have any questions, please contact the corresponding author.

Prior laser studies have demonstrated that as the temperature of a medium increases, the amount of energy delivered to the target increases. We sought to investigate the role of irrigation fluid temperature on Thulium fiber laser (TFL) urolith ablation. 360 calculi were divided in vitro according to chemical composition: calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM), cystine (CYS), struvite (STR), calcium phosphate (CAP), uric acid (UA), and calcium oxalate dihydrate (COD). A 200 μm TFL was placed directly on each stone, while immersed in 0.9% NaCl at four different temperatures (25 C, 37 C, 44 C, 60 C) and a single laser pulse administered at distinct energy settings (0.1 J, 0.5 J, 1.5 J). Optical coherence tomography assessed the resulting ablation cone volume. Mean stone volume and porosity were evaluated through ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc analysis. A multivariate generalized model for each composition accounted for the impact of fluid temperature and laser energy on stone ablation. Warmer fluid temperatures yielded greater ablation cone volumes for most energy settings, excluding UA stones. When accounting for chemical composition, higher tensile strength stones (COM, CYS) benefited most from warmer fluid in comparison to frangible stones (CAP, STR). The effects of increasing fluid temperature are modest relative to laser pulse energy as a large temperature increase (i.e. 7ºC) is equivalent to a minor energy increase (i.e. 0.1 J). For non-UA stones, TFL ablation efficiency increases with warmer irrigation fluid. The effect, albeit modest compared to laser pulse energy, was most notable for COM and CYS stones.