Changes in the pharyngeal and nasal microbiota in pediatric patients with adenotonsillar hypertrophy.

Unlabelled: The present study aimed to investigate the pharyngeal and nasal microbiota composition in children with adenotonsillar hypertrophy (AH) and assess longitudinal alterations in both microbiota after a probiotic oral spray treatment. A cohort of 57 AH patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to the probiotic and placebo groups for a 5-month treatment course. Pharyngeal and nasal swabs were collected before and after treatment and analyzed by 16S rRNA-based metataxonomics and axenic cultures for pathobiont identification.

Electromechanical effects of concentric hypertrophy on the left ventricle: A simulation study.

In this work, we analyze the way concentric hypertrophy, triggered by mild aortic stenosis, affects the electromechanical activity of the left ventricle during a cardiac cycle by employing a 3D finite-element strongly-coupled model. Three mechanical feedbacks on electrophysiology are considered: the conduction feedback, acting on conductivity tensors, the convection feedback, dependent on the deformation rate, and the mechanoelectric feedback due to stretch-activated membrane channels. In case of a multiple endocardial electrical stimulation for a healthy ventricle, the convection feedback raises the values of action potential duration APD while modifying the corresponding distribution patterns, mainly in the latest activated regions.

Cardiac kinematic parameters computed from video of in situ beating heart.

Mechanical function of the heart during open-chest cardiac surgery is exclusively monitored by echocardiographic techniques. However, little is known about local kinematics, particularly for the reperfused regions after ischemic events. We report a novel imaging modality, which extracts local and global kinematic parameters from videos of in situ beating hearts, displaying live video cardiograms of the contraction events.

Simulating the effects of growth and fiber dispersion on the electromechanical response of a cardiac ventricular wedge affected from concentric hypertrophy.

In this paper, we analyze the epicardial electromechanical response of an in silico cardiac ventricular wedge under both healthy and concentric hypertrophic conditions. This is achieved by taking into account the growth of the wedge thickness and the fiber dispersion that may follow. The electromechanical response is described in terms of some macroscopic measures, i.

In silico modelling and analysis of the electrical and mechanical properties of in vitro cardiac cultures with different fiber architectures.

Today, in vitro cardiac cultures are widely exploited to investigate several aspects of the electromechanical behavior of the cardiac tissue. Thus, new forecasts may derive from modelling their properties. In particular, in this paper, we focus on the fiber architecture of cultures, i.

Modelling the effect of thickness on the electromechanical properties of in vitro cardiac cultures: A simulation study.

Nowadays, in vitro cardiac cultures offer a valid tool to study the bioelectrical activity and the biomechanics of the heart tissue. Modelling their properties could be helpful for researchers involved in this field. In this paper, we develop a three-dimensional electromechanical model to study how thickness affects the bioelectrical and biomechanical performances of an in vitro culture made of ventricular cells.