Clinical biomarkers are crucial for diagnosing and predicting outcomes in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this study, we performed an unbiased analysis of plasma proteins in acute TBI patients using bead-based multiplex assays and identified a strong positive correlation between LCN2 and IL-6 levels. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that LCN2 and IL-6 are closely related circulating biomarkers for TBI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis multicentre, prospective, single-arm study evaluated safinamide as add-on therapy to levodopa in Korean patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) with motor fluctuations with ≥ 1.5 h of "off" time daily, who took levodopa ≥ 3 times/day (n = 199). Baseline levodopa and dopamine agonist doses were maintained without escalation during the 18-week treatment period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent research suggests that advanced liver fibrosis could be reversed, but the therapeutic agents needed for the prevention of liver fibrosis remain to be elucidated. The beneficial effects of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and MSC-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) on liver fibrosis have been reported. However, the large-scale production of MSC-EVs remains challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArtificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly transformed various aspects of life, and the launch of the chatbot "ChatGPT" by OpenAI in November 2022 has garnered significant attention and user appreciation. ChatGPT utilizes natural language processing based on a "generative pre-trained transfer" (GPT) model, specifically the transformer architecture, to generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions and topics. Equipped with approximately 57 billion words and 175 billion parameters from online data, ChatGPT has potential applications in medicine and orthopedics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we investigated the micromechanical deformation and damage behavior of commercially extruded and additively manufactured 316L stainless steels (AMed SS316L) by combining experimental examinations and crystal plasticity modeling. The AMed alloy was fabricated using the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technique with an orthogonal scanning strategy to control the directionality of the as-fabricated material. Optical microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction measurements revealed distinct grain morphologies and crystallographic textures in the two alloys.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In previous studies, denosumab, a RANKL human monoclonal antibody used in osteoporosis treatment, has shown efficacy in tendon healing after rotator cuff repair. This prospective study investigated the effects of denosumab on tendon healing, re-tear rates, and clinical outcomes post rotator cuff repair in women with osteoporosis.
Method: This was a prospective, observational study, employing propensity score matching for the control group.
: Large-to-massive rotator cuff tears (LMRCTs) present challenges in achieving successful repair due to factors such as muscle atrophy and tendon retraction. Arthroscopic rotator cuff repair (ARCR) with reinforcement techniques like superior capsule reconstruction (SCR) or patch graft augmentation (PGA) has emerged as a less invasive option to improve shoulder joint stability and prevent retear. This study aimed to compare the clinical and radiological outcomes of SCR and PGA as reinforcement techniques for the arthroscopic repair of LMRCTs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng
March 2024
Diagnosing and treating dementia, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI), is challenging due to diverse disease types and overlapping symptoms. Early MCI detection is vital as it can precede dementia, yet distinguishing it from later stage dementia is intricate due to subtle symptoms. The primary objective of this study is to adopt a complex network perspective to unravel the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of dementia-related disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Alzheimer's disease (AD) involves the complement cascade, with complement component 3 (C3) playing a key role. However, the relationship between C3 and amyloid beta (Aβ) in blood is limited.
Methods: Plasma C3 and Aβ oligomerization tendency (AβOt) were measured in 35 AD patients and 62 healthy controls.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the fracture morphology of distal radius fractures (DRFs) with the status of triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC) foveal insertion in patients with or without osteoporosis and to identify the relationship between osteoporosis and foveal tear. Seventy-five patients who underwent surgery for DRF from January 2021 to September 2023 were included. All patients were evaluated by standard radiography and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and underwent a 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAmyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is the most common type of motor neuron disease characterized by progressive motor neuron degeneration in brain and spinal cord. Most cases are sporadic in ALS and 5-10% of cases are familiar. >50 genes are known to be associated with ALS and one of them is ERBB4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransposon-derived transcripts are abundant in RNA sequences, yet their landscape and function, especially for fusion transcripts derived from unannotated or somatically acquired transposons, remains underexplored. Here, we developed a new bioinformatic tool to detect transposon-fusion transcripts in RNA-sequencing data and performed a pan-cancer analysis of 10,257 cancer samples across 34 cancer types as well as 3,088 normal tissue samples. We identified 52,277 cancer-specific fusions with ~30 events per cancer and hotspot loci within transposons vulnerable to fusion formation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOptic neuritis is an inflammatory demyelinating disorder that primarily affects the optic nerve and is often associated with multiple sclerosis. While it is rare for optic neuritis to be accompanied by autoimmune encephalitis, it can occur in some cases. A 65-year-old woman with bipolar disorder presented with a progressively altered mentality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Degenerative tendinopathy, a condition causing movement restriction due to high pain, highly impacts productivity and quality of life. The healing process is a complex phenomenon and involves a series of intra-cellular and inter-cellular processes. Proliferation and differentiation of the tenocyte is a major and essential process to heal degenerative tendinopathy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The present study compared the clinical effect of extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) with that of ultrasound (US)-guided shoulder steroid injection therapy in patients with supraspinatus tendinitis. We hypothesized that the two treatments would show comparable results.
Methods: The inclusion criteria were age over 20 years and diagnosis of supraspinatus tendinitis using US.
Astrocytes are major supportive glia and immune modulators in the brain; they are highly secretory in nature and interact with other cell types via their secreted proteomes. To understand how astrocytes communicate during neuroinflammation, we profiled the secretome of human astrocytes following stimulation with proinflammatory factors. A total of 149 proteins were significantly upregulated in stimulated astrocytes, and a bioinformatics analysis of the astrocyte secretome revealed that the brain renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is an important mechanism of astrocyte communication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurofilament light chains (NfLs) are promising biomarkers of neuroaxonal damage in stroke patients. We investigated the correlations between NfL levels and infarct volume, initial stroke severity, and functional outcomes at discharge in patients with acute ischemic stroke. We prospectively included 15 patients with first-ever acute ischemic stroke and 8 age- and sex-matched healthy controls without other neurological disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aims of the study are to evaluate idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus (INPH)-related cerebral blood flow (CBF) abnormalities and to investigate their relation to cortical thickness in INPH patients. We investigated cortical CBF utilizing surface-based early-phase F-florbetaben (E-FBB) PET analysis in two groups: INPH patients and healthy controls. All 39 INPH patients and 20 healthy controls were imaged with MRI, including three-dimensional volumetric images, for automated surface-based cortical thickness analysis across the entire brain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The aims of the study were to measure the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volumes in the lateral ventricle, high-convexity subarachnoid space, and Sylvian fissure region in patients with idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus (INPH) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), and to evaluate differences in these volumes between INPH and AD groups and healthy controls.
Methods: Forty-nine INPH patients, 59 AD patients, and 26 healthy controls were imaged with automated three-dimensional volumetric MRI.
Results: INPH patients had larger lateral ventricles and CSF spaces of the Sylvian fissure region and smaller high-convexity subarachnoid spaces than other groups, and AD patients had larger lateral ventricles and CSF spaces of the Sylvian fissure region than the control group.
Biomedicines
August 2022
Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been demonstrated to deliver therapeutic drugs in preclinical studies. However, their use is limited, as they lack the ability to specifically deliver drugs to tumor tissues in vivo. In the present study, we propose the use of a targeting peptide, IL-4R-binding peptide (IL4RPep-1), to specifically deliver intravenously (i.
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