Assessment of Coronary Microcirculation with High Frame-Rate Contrast-Enhanced Echocardiography.

Objective: Assessing myocardial perfusion in acute myocardial infarction is important for guiding clinicians in choosing appropriate treatment strategies. Echocardiography can be used due to its direct feedback and bedside nature, but it currently faces image quality issues and an inability to differentiate coronary macro- from micro-circulation. We previously developed an imaging scheme using high frame-rate contrast-enhanced ultrasound (HFR CEUS) with higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) that provides dynamic perfusion and vascular flow visualization.

Analysing the support mechanisms of the vaginal ring pessary on supine and upright MRI.

Vaginal pessaries have been used for millennia to alleviate symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Despite their long-standing use, the success rate of pessary treatment is approximately 60%, and the underlying mechanisms of support are not well understood. This study aims to investigate three previously proposed hypotheses regarding the support mechanisms of pessaries, utilizing supine and upright magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): (1) support by bony structures, (2) support by levator ani muscles (LAM), and (3) the uterus keeping the pessary in place by acting as a lever.

Imaging-Based Quantitative Assessment of Biomolecular Condensates in vitro and in Cells.

The formation of biomolecular condensates contributes to intracellular compartmentalization, and plays an important role in many cellular processes. The characterization of condensates is however challenging, requiring advanced biophysical or biochemical methods that are often less suitable for in vivo studies. A particular need for easily accessible yet thorough methods that enable the characterization of condensates across different experimental systems thus remains.

The Effect of Anterior Colporrhaphy: A Prospective Study Comparing POP-Q and Upright MRI.

Introduction And Hypothesis: The high recurrence rate (up to 40%) of native tissue surgery for pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is concerning and a better understanding of the effect of surgery is essential in optimizing treatment. As physical examination (Pelvic Organ Prolapse-Quantification, POP-Q) underestimates the degree of prolapse, upright assessment may provide new insights. Therefore, we compared supine POP-Q with upright magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination of the anatomical effect of native tissue POP surgery on the pelvic anatomy.

A global comparison of surface and subsurface microbiomes reveals large-scale biodiversity gradients, and a marine-terrestrial divide.

Subsurface environments are among Earth's largest habitats for microbial life. Yet, until recently, we lacked adequate data to accurately differentiate between globally distributed marine and terrestrial surface and subsurface microbiomes. Here, we analyzed 478 archaeal and 964 bacterial metabarcoding datasets and 147 metagenomes from diverse and widely distributed environments.