Publications by authors named "Brian Li"

Background: Virtual reality (VR) technologies have demonstrated therapeutic usefulness across a variety of health care settings. However, graduate medical education (GME) trainee perspectives on VR acceptability and usability are limited. The behavioral intentions of GME trainees with regard to VR as an anxiolytic tool have not been characterized through a theoretical framework of technology adoption.

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Importance: In pregnancy, the benefits of lithium treatment for relapse prevention in psychiatric conditions must be weighed against potential teratogenic effects. Currently, there is a paucity of information on how and when lithium is used by pregnant women.

Objective: To examine lithium use in the perinatal period.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to evaluate anesthesiologists' acceptance of virtual reality (VR) for reducing patient anxiety before surgery using a technology acceptance model (TAM).
  • - Researchers surveyed 109 anesthesiologists about their attitudes and beliefs towards a VR application, determining factors like perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment as key predictors of their willingness to adopt this technology.
  • - Results showed that younger anesthesiologists found VR easier to use, and overall, perceptions of usefulness and enjoyment greatly influenced their intention to use and purchase the VR tool, while factors like past experience and price did not.
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  • Hospitalized children and their caregivers often face anxiety, and using virtual reality (VR) can help reduce this stress, but the effectiveness of different software design elements remains unclear.
  • A study involving 202 participants evaluated how aspects like fictional environments and graphics quality influence feelings of awe and overall engagement with a custom VR application.
  • Results showed that fictional settings increased awe in pediatric patients, while high-quality graphics were more effective for adult caregivers, and all measures of awe positively correlated with engagement. Future research will look into additional VR design elements.
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Hippocampal place cells are influenced by both self-motion (idiothetic) signals and external sensory landmarks as an animal navigates its environment. To continuously update a position signal on an internal 'cognitive map', the hippocampal system integrates self-motion signals over time, a process that relies on a finely calibrated path integration gain that relates movement in physical space to movement on the cognitive map. It is unclear whether idiothetic cues alone, such as optic flow, exert sufficient influence on the cognitive map to enable recalibration of path integration, or if polarizing position information provided by landmarks is essential for this recalibration.

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Deep learning (DL) models for medical image classification frequently struggle to generalize to data from outside institutions. Additional clinical data are also rarely collected to comprehensively assess and understand model performance amongst subgroups. Following the development of a single-center model to identify the lung sliding artifact on lung ultrasound (LUS), we pursued a validation strategy using external LUS data.

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Article Synopsis
  • HRAD± is a tool designed to quickly see how kids feel and act before surgery, using simple feelings like happy or anxious and a yes/no for cooperation.
  • The study checked how useful HRAD± was for kids getting anesthesia with a mask and looked into how reliable the scores were when different people used it.
  • Researchers worked with 197 kids at a children's hospital and found HRAD± scores matched well with other anxiety and behavior scales, helping predict how kids would feel after waking up from surgery.
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Background: A panel convened by the American Dental Association Science and Research Institute, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pennsylvania conducted systematic reviews and meta-analyses and formulated evidence-based recommendations for the pharmacologic management of acute dental pain after simple and surgical tooth extraction(s) and for the temporary management (ie, definitive dental treatment not immediately available) of toothache associated with pulp and periapical diseases in adolescents, adults, and older adults.

Types Of Studies Reviewed: The panel conducted 4 systematic reviews to determine the effect of opioid and nonopioid analgesics, local anesthetics, corticosteroids, and topical anesthetics on acute dental pain. The panel used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach to assess the certainty of the evidence and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation Evidence-to-Decision Framework to formulate recommendations.

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  • Pediatric patients and their caregivers often face anxiety during surgery, and reducing caregiver anxiety can enhance patient cooperation and overall experience.
  • A study tested the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) mindfulness meditation to lower caregiver anxiety compared to standard care, measuring anxiety levels with Visual Analogue Scale for Anxiety (VAS-A) and other tools.
  • Results showed that caregivers using VR reported significantly lower anxiety levels and higher satisfaction than those in the standard care group, suggesting VR mindfulness is a safe and effective intervention in pediatric healthcare.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to evaluate a new technology acceptance model (TAM) for virtual reality (VR) in healthcare, focusing on pediatric health providers' intentions to use VR as a tool for reducing anxiety in hospitalized kids.
  • Healthcare providers experienced VR as an anxiolytic during minor procedures and filled out surveys on their attitudes and behaviors toward adopting the technology.
  • Results showed that factors like perceived usefulness and enjoyment of VR strongly predicted providers' intention to use VR, while age, past experiences, and cost did not significantly affect their usage intentions, indicating potential widespread adoption in pediatric care.
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Background: A guideline panel convened by the American Dental Association Council on Scientific Affairs, American Dental Association Science and Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, and Center for Integrative Global Oral Health at the University of Pennsylvania conducted a systematic review and meta-analyses and formulated evidence-based recommendations for the pharmacologic management of acute dental pain after 1 or more simple and surgical tooth extractions and the temporary management of toothache (that is, when definitive dental treatment not immediately available) associated with pulp and furcation or periapical diseases in children (< 12 years).

Types Of Studies Reviewed: The authors conducted a systematic review to determine the effect of analgesics and corticosteroids in managing acute dental pain. They used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach to assess the certainty of the evidence and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation Evidence to Decision framework to formulate recommendations.

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The hematopoietic niche is a supportive microenvironment composed of distinct cell types, including specialized vascular endothelial cells that directly interact with hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). The molecular factors that specify niche endothelial cells and orchestrate HSPC homeostasis remain largely unknown. Using multi-dimensional gene expression and chromatin accessibility analyses in zebrafish, we define a conserved gene expression signature and cis-regulatory landscape that are unique to sinusoidal endothelial cells in the HSPC niche.

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Spatiotemporal regulation of the cellular transcriptome is crucial for proper protein expression and cellular function. However, the intricate subcellular dynamics of RNA remain obscured due to the limitations of existing transcriptomics methods. Here, we report TEMPOmap-a method that uncovers subcellular RNA profiles across time and space at the single-cell level.

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Objectives: To evaluate the accuracy of a bedside, real-time deployment of a deep learning (DL) model capable of distinguishing between normal (A line pattern) and abnormal (B line pattern) lung parenchyma on lung ultrasound (LUS) in critically ill patients.

Design: Prospective, observational study evaluating the performance of a previously trained LUS DL model. Enrolled patients received a LUS examination with simultaneous DL model predictions using a portable device.

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Article Synopsis
  • - CIViC is a public, crowd-sourced database that compiles peer-reviewed research on the clinical significance of cancer variants to aid in cancer management.
  • - It offers structured data in real-time to facilitate global access and is designed to keep up with evolving variant interpretation guidelines and enhance collaboration with other resources.
  • - The platform has successfully expanded to include new Evidence Types related to cancer variants and now features contributions from over 300 experts, covering more than 3200 variants across 470 genes from over 3100 published studies.
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The management of heart failure with a reduced ejection fraction is a true success story of modern medicine. Evidence from randomised clinical trials provides the basis for an extensive catalogue of disease-modifying drug treatments that improve both symptoms and survival. These treatments have undergone rigorous scrutiny by licensing and guideline development bodies to make them eligible for clinical use.

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Background: Annotating large medical imaging datasets is an arduous and expensive task, especially when the datasets in question are not organized according to deep learning goals. Here, we propose a method that exploits the hierarchical organization of annotating tasks to optimize efficiency.

Methods: We trained a machine learning model to accurately distinguish between one of two classes of lung ultrasound (LUS) views using 2908 clips from a larger dataset.

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Pneumothorax is a potentially life-threatening condition that can be rapidly and accurately assessed via the lung sliding artefact generated using lung ultrasound (LUS). Access to LUS is challenged by user dependence and shortage of training. Image classification using deep learning methods can automate interpretation in LUS and has not been thoroughly studied for lung sliding.

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Introduction: Ineffective esophageal motility (IEM) is the most common motility disorder identified on esophageal high-resolution manometry (HRM), but patients with this finding may be asymptomatic. Therefore, we aimed to identify specific HRM findings predictive of symptoms in IEM.

Methods: Adult patients (≥18 y) who underwent HRM between March 2016 and July 2019 were retrospectively evaluated and reclassified according to Chicago Classification 4.

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Pancreatic cancer is a disease with an incredibly poor survival rate. As only about 20% of patients are eligible for surgical resection, neoadjuvant treatments that can relieve symptoms and shrink tumors for surgical resection become critical. Many forms of treatments rely on increased vulnerability of cancerous cells, but tumors or regions within the tumors that may be hypoxic could be drug resistant.

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As guidelines, therapies, and literature on cancer variants expand, the lack of consensus variant interpretations impedes clinical applications. CIViC is a public domain, crowd-sourced, and adaptable knowledgebase of evidence for the Clinical Interpretation of Variants in Cancer, designed to reduce barriers to knowledge sharing and alleviate the variant interpretation bottleneck.

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Unlabelled: Ireland is a country with a low incidence of tuberculosis (TB) (5.6 cases per 100,000 population in 2019) that should be aiming for TB elimination (fewer than 1 case per million of population). To achieve TB elimination in low-incidence countries, programmatic latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) management is important.

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All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) is an essential therapy in the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), but nearly 20% of patients with APL are resistant to ATRA. As there are no biomarkers for ATRA resistance that yet exist, we investigated whether cell mechanics could be associated with this pathological phenotype. Using mechano-node-pore sensing, a single-cell mechanical phenotyping platform, and patient-derived APL cell lines, we discovered that ATRA-resistant APL cells are less mechanically pliable.

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Node-Pore Sensing, NPS, is an extremely versatile and powerful technique for the analysis of cells and the detection of extracellular vesicles (EVs). NPS involves measuring the modulated current pulse caused by a cell transiting a microfluidic channel that has been segmented by a series of inserted nodes. As the current pulse reflects the number of nodes and segments of the channel, NPS can achieve exquisite sensitivity.

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