Online Adaptive Radiation Therapy and Opportunity Cost.

Purpose: Changes in patient anatomy and tumor geometry pose a challenge to ensuring consistent target coverage and organ-at-risk sparing; online adaptive radiation therapy (ART) accounts for these interfractional changes by facilitating replanning before each treatment. This project explored the opportunity cost of computed tomography (CT)-based online ART by evaluating time and human resource requirements. Time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) was employed to determine the cost of this time to assess if the dosimetric benefit is worthwhile.

The Use of Low-Dose Radiation Therapy in Osteoarthritis: A Review.

Despite its clinical use and investigation in other countries, low dose radiation therapy (LDRT) in the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA) is minimally used in the United States (US). Numerous recent studies published outside the US have shown moderate to long-term pain relief and improvement of mobility after treatment with LDRT for joints affected by OA. Here, we review the most recent literature published on the use of LDRT in OA.

Pre- and Posttherapy Risk Factors for Vasculopathy in Pediatric Patients With Craniopharyngioma Treated With Surgery and Proton Radiation Therapy.

Purpose: Vasculopathy (VAS) is a significant complication associated with radiation therapy in patients treated for brain tumors. We studied the type, location, severity, timing, and resolution of VAS in children with craniopharyngioma treated with proton radiation therapy (PRT) and evaluated predictors of stenosis (STN) using a novel patient and imaging-based modeling approach.

Methods And Materials: Children with craniopharyngioma (n = 94) were treated with 54 Gy relative biological effectiveness PRT in a clinical trial, NCT01419067.

Scalp and Cranium Radiation Therapy Using Modulation (SCRUM) and Bolus.

Purpose: A bolus is usually required to ensure radiation dose coverage of extensive superficial tumors of the scalp or skull. Oftentimes, these boluses are challenging to make and are nonreproducible, so an easier method was sought.

Methods And Materials: Thermoplastic sheets are widely available in radiation oncology clinics and can serve as bolus.

Social media utilization in the cochlear implant community.

Background: More than 200,000 individuals worldwide have received a cochlear implant (CI). Social media Websites may provide a paramedical community for those who possess or are interested in a CI. The utilization patterns of social media by the CI community, however, have not been thoroughly investigated.

Direct visualization of the murine dorsal cochlear nucleus for optogenetic stimulation of the auditory pathway.

Investigation into the use of virus-mediated gene transfer to arrest or reverse hearing loss has largely been relegated to the peripheral auditory system. Few studies have examined gene transfer to the central auditory system. The dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) of the brainstem, which contains second order neurons of the auditory pathway, is a potential site for gene transfer.

Superior temporal resolution of Chronos versus channelrhodopsin-2 in an optogenetic model of the auditory brainstem implant.

Contemporary auditory brainstem implant (ABI) performance is limited by reliance on electrical neurostimulation with its accompanying channel cross talk and current spread to non-auditory neurons. A new generation ABI based on optogenetic technology may ameliorate limitations fundamental to electrical stimulation. The most widely studied opsin is channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2); however, its relatively slow kinetic properties may prevent the encoding of auditory information at high stimulation rates.

Optogenetic stimulation of the cochlear nucleus using channelrhodopsin-2 evokes activity in the central auditory pathways.

Optogenetics has become an important research tool and is being considered as the basis for several neural prostheses. However, few studies have applied optogenetics to the auditory brainstem. This study explored whether optical activation of the cochlear nucleus (CN) elicited responses in neurons in higher centers of the auditory pathway and whether it elicited an evoked response.

Commissural axons of the mouse cochlear nucleus.

The axons of commissural neurons that project from one cochlear nucleus to the other were studied after labeling with anterograde tracer. Injections were made into the dorsal subdivision of the cochlear nucleus in order to restrict labeling only to the group of commissural neurons that gave off collaterals to, or were located in, this subdivision. The number of labeled commissural axons in each injection was correlated with the number of labeled radiate multipolar neurons, suggesting radiate neurons as the predominant origin of the axons.

Robustness of cortical topography across fields, laminae, anesthetic states, and neurophysiological signal types.

Topographically organized maps of the sensory receptor epithelia are regarded as cornerstones of cortical organization as well as valuable readouts of diverse biological processes ranging from evolution to neural plasticity. However, maps are most often derived from multiunit activity recorded in the thalamic input layers of anesthetized animals using near-threshold stimuli. Less distinct topography has been described by studies that deviated from the formula above, which brings into question the generality of the principle.

Planar multipolar cells in the cochlear nucleus project to medial olivocochlear neurons in mouse.

Medial olivocochlear (MOC) neurons originate in the superior olivary complex and project to the cochlea, where they act to reduce the effects of noise masking and protect the cochlea from damage. MOC neurons respond to sound via a reflex pathway; however, in this pathway the cochlear nucleus cell type that provides input to MOC neurons is not known. We investigated whether multipolar cells of the ventral cochlear nucleus have projections to MOC neurons by labeling them with injections into the dorsal cochlear nucleus.

Population genetics of ecological communities with DNA barcodes: an example from New Guinea Lepidoptera.

Comparative population genetics of ecological guilds can reveal generalities in patterns of differentiation bearing on hypotheses regarding the origin and maintenance of community diversity. Contradictory estimates of host specificity and beta diversity in tropical Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) from New Guinea and the Americas have sparked debate on the role of host-associated divergence and geographic isolation in explaining latitudinal diversity gradients. We sampled haplotypes of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I from 28 Lepidoptera species and 1,359 individuals across four host plant genera and eight sites in New Guinea to estimate population divergence in relation to host specificity and geography.

Air quality impacts of distributed energy resources implemented in the northeastern United States.

Emissions from the potential installation of distributed energy resources (DER) in the place of current utility-scale power generators have been introduced into an emissions inventory of the northeastern United States. A methodology for predicting future market penetration of DER that considers economics and emission factors was used to estimate the most likely implementation of DER. The methodology results in spatially and temporally resolved emission profiles of criteria pollutants that are subsequently introduced into a detailed atmospheric chemistry and transport model of the region.

Characterization and development of courtship in zebrafish, Danio rerio.

Zebrafish, Danio rerio, is introduced here as a useful organism for investigating teleost courtship display and its development. Pair matings of adult zebrafish confirmed that the courtship behavior sequence fell into three general phases: initiatory, receptive/appetitive, and spawning. The developmental onset of identifiable courtship behaviors was also studied.

Expression studies of osteoglycin/mimecan (OGN) in the cochlea and auditory phenotype of Ogn-deficient mice.

Genes involved in the hearing process have been identified through both positional cloning efforts following genetic linkage studies of families with heritable deafness and by candidate gene approaches based on known functional properties or inner ear expression. The latter method of gene discovery may employ a tissue- or organ-specific approach. Through characterization of a human fetal cochlear cDNA library, we have identified transcripts that are preferentially and/or highly expressed in the cochlea.

Eya4-deficient mice are a model for heritable otitis media.

Otitis media is an extremely common pediatric inflammation of the middle ear that often causes pain and diminishes hearing. Vulnerability to otitis media is due to eustachian tube dysfunction as well as other poorly understood factors, including genetic susceptibility. As EYA4 mutations cause sensorineural hearing loss in humans, we produced and characterized Eya4-deficient (Eya4(-/-)) mice, which had severe hearing deficits.

Low beta diversity of herbivorous insects in tropical forests.

Recent advances in understanding insect communities in tropical forests have contributed little to our knowledge of large-scale patterns of insect diversity, because incomplete taxonomic knowledge of many tropical species hinders the mapping of their distribution records. This impedes an understanding of global biodiversity patterns and explains why tropical insects are under-represented in conservation biology. Our study of approximately 500 species from three herbivorous guilds feeding on foliage (caterpillars, Lepidoptera), wood (ambrosia beetles, Coleoptera) and fruit (fruitflies, Diptera) found a low rate of change in species composition (beta diversity) across 75,000 square kilometres of contiguous lowland rainforest in Papua New Guinea, as most species were widely distributed.

Methylthioadenosine phosphorylase (MTAP) in hearing: gene disruption by chromosomal rearrangement in a hearing impaired individual and model organism analysis.

Genes with a role in the auditory system have been mapped by genetic linkage analysis of families with heritable deafness and then cloned through positional candidate gene approaches. Another positional method for gene discovery is to ascertain deaf individuals with balanced chromosomal translocations and identify disrupted or disregulated genes at the site(s) of rearrangement. We report herein the use of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to map the breakpoint regions on each derivative chromosome of a de novo apparently balanced translocation, t(8;9)(q12.

Usherin is required for maintenance of retinal photoreceptors and normal development of cochlear hair cells.

Usher syndrome type IIA (USH2A), characterized by progressive photoreceptor degeneration and congenital moderate hearing loss, is the most common subtype of Usher syndrome. In this article, we show that the USH2A protein, also known as usherin, is an exceptionally large ( approximately 600-kDa) matrix protein expressed specifically in retinal photoreceptors and developing cochlear hair cells. In mammalian photoreceptors, usherin is localized to a spatially restricted membrane microdomain at the apical inner segment recess that wraps around the connecting cilia, corresponding to the periciliary ridge complex described for amphibian photoreceptors.

Cochlear efferent feedback balances interaural sensitivity.

Neurons in the lateral superior olive (LSO) compute sound location based on differences in interaural intensity, coded in ascending signals from the two cochleas. Unilateral destruction of the neuronal feedback from the LSO to the cochlea, the lateral olivocochlear efferents, disrupted the normal interaural correlation in response amplitudes to sounds of equal intensity. Thus, lateral olivocochlear feedback maintains the binaural balance in neural excitability required for accurate localization of sounds in space.

Selective removal of lateral olivocochlear efferents increases vulnerability to acute acoustic injury.

Cochlear sensory cells and neurons receive efferent feedback from the olivocochlear (OC) system. The myelinated medial component of the OC system and its effects on outer hair cells (OHCs) have been implicated in protection from acoustic injury. The unmyelinated lateral (L)OC fibers target ipsilateral cochlear nerve dendrites and pharmacological studies suggest the LOC's dopaminergic component may protect these dendrites from excitotoxic effects of acoustic overexposure.

Dopaminergic innervation of the mouse inner ear: evidence for a separate cytochemical group of cochlear efferent fibers.

Immunostaining mouse cochleas for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and dopamine beta-hydroxylase suggests that there is a rich adrenergic innervation throughout the auditory nerve trunk and a small dopaminergic innervation of the sensory cell areas. Surgical cuts in the brainstem confirm these dopaminergic fibers as part of the olivocochlear efferent bundle. Within the sensory epithelium, TH-positive terminals are seen only in the inner hair cell area, where they intermingle with other olivocochlear terminals expressing cholinergic markers (vesicular acetylcholine transporter; VAT).

Predictably simple: assemblages of caterpillars (Lepidoptera) feeding on rainforest trees in Papua New Guinea.

Predictability in the composition of tropical assemblages of insect herbivores was studied using a sample of 35,952 caterpillars (Lepidoptera) from 534 species, feeding on 69 woody species from 45 genera and 23 families in a lowland rainforest in Papua New Guinea. Caterpillar assemblages were strongly dominated by a single species (median 48% of individuals and 49% of biomass). They were spatially and temporally constant (median normalized expected species shared (NESS) similarity between assemblages from the same host was greater than or equal to 0.

Multimodal standardization of voice among four multicultural populations formant structures.

A stratified random sample of 20 males and 20 females matched for physiologic factors and cultural-linguistic markers was examined to determine differences in formant frequencies during prolongation of three vowels: [a], [i], and [u]. The ethnic and gender breakdown included four sets of 5 male and 5 female subjects comprised of Caucasian and African American speakers of Standard American English, native Hindi Indian speakers, and native Mandarin Chinese speakers. Acoustic measures were analyzed using the Computerized Speech Lab (4300B) from which formant histories were extracted from a 200-ms sample of each vowel token to obtain first formant (F1), second formant (F2), and third formant (F3) frequencies.