Evoking stable and precise tactile sensations via multi-electrode intracortical microstimulation of the somatosensory cortex.

Tactile feedback from brain-controlled bionic hands can be partially restored via intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) of the primary somatosensory cortex. In ICMS, the location of percepts depends on the electrode's location and the percept intensity depends on the stimulation frequency and amplitude. Sensors on a bionic hand can thus be linked to somatotopically appropriate electrodes, and the contact force of each sensor can be used to determine the amplitude of a stimulus.

Quality Initiative to Increase Early Initiation and Series Completion of HPV Vaccine and its Impact on Health Disparities.

Objective: HPV infection is associated with a large burden of disease prevalence, morbidity, and known disparities. HPV vaccination rates remain lower than other childhood immunizations, despite vaccine safety and effectiveness. The objective of this QI intervention was to improve HPV vaccination rate by 15% over 3-years through early initiation and analyze trends across health disparities.

Neurosurgery Fellowships and the Residencies That Enfold Them: A Nationwide Correlational Analysis.

Background And Objectives: Accredited neurosurgery fellowship training is available in 10 subspecialties and can sometimes be completed during the postgraduate year (PGY)-7 residency year. However, it is not clear whether there are sufficient residency graduates to fill the number of positions available, and residency curriculum structure to support enfolded training is evolving.

Methods: Detailed information about the 117 accredited neurosurgery residency programs and the 282 accredited neurosurgery fellowships was obtained from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and Committee on Advanced Subspecialty Training, respectively.

Extradigital Symplastic Glomus Tumor and Review of the Literature.

Symplastic glomus tumors are a rare subtype of glomus tumor defined by nuclear atypia without additional markers of malignancy such as large size, deep location, or atypical/prevalent mitotic figures. Glomus tumors, including the symplastic subtype, most commonly present in the subungual area with rarer extradigital presentation. To our knowledge, there have been less than 25 cases of symplastic glomus tumors described in the literature.

The burden of COVID-19 mortality among solid organ transplant recipients in the United States.

Solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) have a heightened risk of adverse coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outcomes because of immunosuppression and medical comorbidity. We quantified the burden of COVID-19 mortality in United States (US) SOTRs. A sample of deaths documented in the US solid organ transplant registry from June 2020 through December 2022 was linked to the National Death Index to identify COVID-19 deaths and weighted to represent all SOTR deaths during the study period.

Development of Machine Learning Algorithms Using EEG Data to Detect the Presence of Chronic Pain.

Chronic pain impacts more than one in five adults in the United States (US) and the costs associated with the condition amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Despite the tremendous impact of chronic pain in the US and worldwide, the standard of care for diagnosis depends on subjective self-reporting of pain state, with no effective objective assessment procedure available. This study investigated the application of signal processing and machine learning to electroencephalography (EEG) data for the development of classification algorithms capable of differentiating subjects in pain from pain free subjects.

Tobacco Use and Trigeminal Neuralgia: Clinical Features and Outcome After Microvascular Decompression.

Background And Objectives: Tobacco use is known to affect incidence and postoperative outcome for several neurosurgical disorders, but its relationship to trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is not known. We sought to identify unique population characteristics that correlate with tobacco use in a cohort of patients with TN who underwent microvascular decompression (MVD), including effect on long-term postoperative outcome.

Methods: Data about 171 patients with classic TN treated with MVD were obtained from a prospectively maintained registry.

The inefficient effects of non-clinical factors on health care costs.

We use Benford's law to examine the non-random elements of health care costs. We find that as health care expenditures increase, the conformity to the expected distribution of naturally occurring numbers worsens, indicating a tendency towards inefficient treatment. Government insurers follow Benford's law better than private insurers indicating more efficient treatment.

Co-infection of Liburna oophaga sp. nov. and Ikanecator primus on cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis) eggs and the effectiveness of peracetic acid as a treatment.

The cuttlefish Sepia pharaonis species complex is emerging as a promising set of organisms for research in neuroscience, the behavioral sciences, and commercial aquaculture. At the same time, information about pathogens and diseases that could affect cuttlefish cultivation in intensive aquaculture settings remains limited. Our study has identified two species of parasite, the protozoan Liburna oophaga sp.

The Penn Electrophysiology of Encoding and Retrieval Study.

The Penn Electrophysiology of Encoding and Retrieval Study (PEERS) aimed to characterize the behavioral and electrophysiological (EEG) correlates of memory encoding and retrieval in highly practiced individuals. Across five PEERS experiments, 300+ subjects contributed more than 7,000 memory testing sessions with recorded EEG data. Here we tell the story of PEERS: its genesis, evolution, major findings, and the lessons it taught us about taking a big scientific approach in studying memory and the human brain.

Peracetic acid treatment of squid eggs infected with parasitic copepod (Ikanecator primus gen. et sp. nov.).

Having been successfully bred in semi-intensive and intensive aquaculture systems, oval squids of the Sepioteuthis lessoniana species complex are emerging as promising candidates for research and industry. Nevertheless, information about pathogens and diseases that may affect squid aquaculture remains sparse. In this study, we identify new parasitic copepod species that causes squid mortality and decreases squid hatching rates, and we also offer a solution to eliminate the pathogen during incubation of squid eggs.

Emergency Department Initiative to Decrease High-flow Nasal Cannula Use for Admitted Patients with Bronchiolitis.

Background: Despite limited evidence, a high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) is often used to treat mild to moderate (m/m) bronchiolitis. We aimed to decrease the rate of HFNC use in the pediatric emergency department (PED) for m/m bronchiolitis from a baseline of 37% to less than 18.5%.

Analysis of 20 Years of Ethics Consultations at a U.S. Children's Hospital.

AbstractEmpirical studies of pediatric clinical ethics cases are scant in the biomedical and bioethics literature. In this study, more than 100 detailed records of clinical ethics consultations spanning from 2000 to 2020 at a moderately sized U.S.

Community Partnership to Co-Develop an Intervention to Promote Equitable Uptake of the COVID-19 Vaccine Among Pediatric Populations.

Objective: To describe the process of engaging community, caregiver, and youth partners in codeveloping an intervention to promote equitable uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in non-Hispanic Black (Black) and Hispanic youth who experience higher rates of COVID-19 transmission, morbidity, and mortality but were less likely to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Methods: A team of 11 Black and Hispanic community partners was assembled to codevelop intervention strategies with our interdisciplinary research team. We used a mixed-methods crowdsourcing approach with Black and Hispanic youth (n=15) and caregivers of Black and Hispanic youth (n=20) who had not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19, recruited from primary care clinics, to elicit perspectives on the acceptability of these intervention strategies.

Transcriptome dataset of responses to varied microbial pathogens.

Transcriptome analysis through next-generation sequencing (NGS) is an invaluable tool for investigating changes in gene expression across diverse organisms. The nematode () serves as an excellent model organism for dissecting host responses to bacterial infections. Here, our dataset obtained from bulk RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) can be used to provide in-depth characterization of the mRNA transcriptome profiles of wild-type N2 animals and null mutants of the cytoskeletal regulatory gene /Nav2 following exposure to distinct bacterial environments: their natural laboratory food source, OP50, the human and nematode pathogen PA14, and the emerging pathogen Ag1.

OPTN/SRTR 2022 Annual Data Report: Vascularized Composite Allograft.

This year's chapter on vascularized composite allograft (VCA) encompasses reviews of data collected from 2014 (when VCA was included in the Final Rule) through 2022. The present Annual Data Report shows that the number of VCA recipients in the United States continues to be small and has remained consistent from the prior report. The data continue to be limited by sample size, with trends persistently demonstrating a predominance of White males in the young/middle-aged population as both donors and recipients for nonuterus VCA transplants, and White women younger than 35 years as the predominant recipients of uterus transplant.

OPTN/SRTR 2022 Annual Data Report: COVID-19.

This chapter updates the COVID-19 chapter from the 2021 Annual Data Report with trends through November 12, 2022, and introduces trends in recovery and use of organs from donors with a positive COVID-19 test. Posttransplant mortality and graft failure, which remained a concern in all organs at the last report due to the Omicron variant wave, have returned to lower levels in the most recent available data through November 2022. Use of organs from donors with a positive COVID-19 test has grown, particularly after the first year of the pandemic.

OPTN/SRTR 2022 Annual Data Report: Deceased Organ Donation.

The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients uses data collected by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to calculate metrics such as organs recovered per donor, organs transplanted per donor, and organs recovered for transplant but not transplanted (ie, nonuse). In 2022, there were 14,905 deceased donors, a 7.5% increase from 13,863 in 2021, and this number has been increasing since 2010.

OPTN/SRTR 2022 Annual Data Report: Kidney.

The year 2022 had continued successes and challenges for the field of kidney transplantation, as the community adapted to ongoing surges of the COVID-19 pandemic and broader geographic organ distribution. The total number of kidney transplants in the United States reached a record count of 26,309, driven by continued growth in deceased donor kidney transplants (DDKTs). The total number of candidates listed for DDKT rose slightly in 2022 but remained below 2019 listing levels, with 12.

OPTN/SRTR 2022 Annual Data Report: Pancreas.

The postpandemic recovery did not occur in pancreas transplantation as in other organs. The number of pancreas transplants in the United States decreased to 918 in 2022 from 963 in 2021. The number of simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplants decreased to 810 in 2022 from 820 in 2021, but the largest decrease was in pancreas transplant alone: 62 in 2022 compared with 92 in 2021.