Introduction: Chronic social isolation (CSI) stress leads to numerous maladaptive changes in physiology and psychology, however, very little is known about the effects of longer time-scale CSI and there are divergent views regarding the underlying mechanisms. This study aimed to elucidate the common neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying the maladaptive changes caused by 14-week (14wk-) and 20-week (20wk-) CSI.
Methods: We investigated the impacts of 14wk- and 20wk- CSI on anxiety/depression-like behaviors in male C57BL/6N mice with classical behavioral tests, and the immunofluorescence method was used for quantification of the arginine vasopressin (AVP)/Oxytocin (OT) positive neurons in the PVN and screening out the differential activation brain regions (DABrs) on exposure of tail suspension.
Background: Degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis (DLS) with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is a common condition resulting in substantial lower back pain and disability. Surgical intervention is recommended only when conservative treatment fails. This study compared UBE-TLIF and MIS-TLIF regarding clinical outcomes and fusion rates in patients with single-segment DLS with LSS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To develop and validate a 3D turbo spin-echo (TSE)-compatible approach to enhancing black-blood (BB) effects while preserving T weighting and overall SNR.
Methods: Following the excitation RF pulse, a 180° RF pulse sandwiched by a pair of flow-sensitive dephasing (FSD) gradient pulses in the phase- (y) and partition-encoding (z) directions, respectively, is added. The polarity of FSD gradients in z direction is toggled every TR, achieving an interleaved FSD (iFSD) configuration in y-z plane.
DNAJB6, a major member of the DNAJ/HSP40 family, plays an important role in tumor development. We explored the effect of DNAJB6 expression on the prognosis of patients and its biological role in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). mRNA and clinical data were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnimals may experience early negative (mechanical pain: being retrieved using an incisor by parents or attacked) or positive stimulation (being licked and groomed) that may affect emotional and social behaviors in adulthood. Whether positive tactile stimulation can reverse adverse consequences on emotional and social behaviors in adulthood resulting from chronic mechanical pain and underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study used a tail-pinching model during development to simulate mechanical pain experienced by pups in high-social mandarin voles (Microtus mandarinus).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common diagnosis requiring acute hospitalization. Long-term, TBI is a significant source of health and socioeconomic impact in the United States and globally. The goal of clinicians who manage TBI is to prevent secondary brain injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomimetics (Basel)
November 2023
Pickled mustard tuber (PMT), also known as var. , is a conical tuberous vegetable with a scaly upper part and a coarse fiber skin covering the lower part. Due to its highly distorted and complex heterogeneous fiber network structure, traditional manual labor is still used for peeling and removing fibers from pickled mustard tuber, as there is currently no effective, fully automated method or equipment available.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Quantitative plaque assessment based on 3D magnetic resonance (MR) vessel wall imaging (VWI) has been shown to provide valuable numerical markers of the burden and risk of intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD). However, plaque quantification is currently time-consuming and observer-dependent due to the demand for heavy manual effort. A VWI-dedicated automated processing pipeline (VWI-APP) is desirable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To extend the MR MultiTasking-based Multidimensional Assessment of Cardiovascular System (MT-MACS) technique with larger spatial coverage and water-fat separation for comprehensive aortocardiac assessment.
Methods: MT-MACS adopts a low-rank tensor image model for 7D imaging, with three spatial dimensions for volumetric imaging, one cardiac motion dimension for cine imaging, one respiratory motion dimension for free-breathing imaging, one T2-prepared inversion recovery time dimension for multi-contrast assessment, and one T2*-decay time dimension for water-fat separation. Nine healthy subjects were recruited for the 3T study.
Pathogenic bacterial infections of skin wounds have caused a significant threat to clinical treatment and human life safety. Here, we develop a bactericidal hydrogel dressing consisting of a polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel framework with in situ surface-deposition of iron-dopped polydopamine (FePDA). The prepared hydrogel dressing (FePDA-PAM) has a compact surface, good tensile strength, and excellent elastic recovery ability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite advancements in multi-modal imaging techniques, a substantial portion of ischemic stroke patients today remain without a diagnosed etiology after conventional workup. Based on existing diagnostic criteria, these ischemic stroke patients are subcategorized into having cryptogenic stroke (CS) or embolic stroke of undetermined source (ESUS). There is growing evidence that in these patients, non-cardiogenic embolic sources, in particular non-stenosing atherosclerotic plaque, may have significant contributory roles in their ischemic strokes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To develop an automated vessel wall segmentation method on T1-weighted intracranial vessel wall magnetic resonance images, with a focus on modeling the inclusion relation between the inner and outer boundaries of the vessel wall.
Methods: We propose a novel method that estimates the inner and outer vessel wall boundaries simultaneously, using a network with a single output channel resembling the level-set function height. The network is driven by a unique tiered loss that accounts for data fidelity of the lumen and vessel wall classes and a length regularization to encourage boundary smoothness.
Intracardiac thrombus in the left atrium and atrial appendage (LA/LAA) and left ventricle (LV) increases the risk of systemic thromboembolism and causes potentially devastating diseases such as ischemic stroke and acute ischemia in abdominal organs and lower extremities. Detecting the presence and monitoring the resolution of left heart intracardiac thrombus are of vital importance for stratifying patients and guiding treatment decisions. Currently, echocardiography is the most frequently used method for the above clinical needs, followed by computed tomography.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To compare the biomechanical behaviors of the spatial bridge locking fixator (SBLF), single locking plate (SP), and double locking plate (DP) for AO/OTA 32-A3.2 fractures using finite element analysis and biomechanical tests.
Methods: Axial loading of 700 N was conducted on the AO/OTA 32-A3.
To develop and test the feasibility of a novel Single ProjectIon DrivEn Real-time Multi-contrast (SPIDERM) MR imaging technique that can generate real-time 3D images on-the-fly with flexible contrast weightings and a low latency.In SPIDERM, a 'prep' scan is first performed, with sparse k-space sampling periodically interleaved with the central k-space line (navigator data), to learn a subject-specific model, incorporating a spatial subspace and a linear transformation between navigator data and subspace coordinates. A 'live' scan is then performed by repeatedly acquiring the central k-space line only to dynamically determine subspace coordinates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground Studies suggest the presence of sex differences in hypertension prevalence and its associated outcomes in atherosclerosis and stroke. We hypothesized a higher intracranial atherosclerosis burden among men with hypertension and acute ischemic stroke compared with women. Methods and Results A multicenter retrospective study was performed from a prospective database identifying patients with hypertension presenting with intracranial atherosclerosis-related acute ischemic stroke and imaged with intracranial vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnalysis of vessel morphology is important in assessing intracranial atherosclerosis disease (ICAD). Recently, magnetic resonance (MR) vessel wall imaging (VWI) has been introduced to image ICAD and characterize morphology for atherosclerotic lesions. In order to automatically perform quantitative analysis on VWI data, MR angiography (MRA) acquired in the same imaging session is typically used to localize the vessel segments of interest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction And Aim: Periprosthetic femoral fractures (PFF) represent an increasing clinical and economic burden. This study aims to determine the optimal configuration of a bridge-combined internal fixation system in the treatment of Vancouver type B1 PFF, using finite element analysis.
Materials And Methods: A three-rod ortho-bridge system (OBS) fixation model was used to evaluate the optimal configuration of four target parameters: position of the third rod; intersection angle between the proximal screws; connecting rod diameter; and number of screws used.
Objective: Repair of cartilage defects, a common condition resulting from many factors, is still a great challenge. Based on their chondrogenic differentiation ability, mesenchymal stem cell- (MSC-) based cartilage regeneration is a promising approach for cartilage defect repair. However, MSC differentiation into chondroblasts or related cell lineages is elaborately controlled by stem cell differentiation stage factors and affected by an array of bioactive elements, which may impede the efficient production of target cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMeningovascular neurosyphilis is a common cause of stroke in young adults, particularly when HIV co-infection is present. Contemporary screening for neurosyphilis relies on invasive testing. High resolution vessel wall imaging (HR-VW) is an emerging non-invasive tool to detect intracranial vessel wall inflammation.
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