Stuck in the Middle With You: Why a Broad-Brush Approach to Defining Central Sensitization Does Not Help Clinicians and Patients.

Central sensitization is (1) increasingly interpreted as central nervous system hyperexcitability that accounts for a general increase in sensitivity, and (2) used to explain a variety of pain and nonpain symptoms. In this commentary, we argue that such a broad interpretation might not be clinically useful because it fails to distinguish one patient from another based on pathophysiological mechanisms and does not facilitate tailored treatment. We recommend that clinicians use a person-centered approach when assessing and managing patients, considering the different interacting processes/mechanisms that can contribute to a patient's clinical presentation.

Effect of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment vs Sham Treatment on Activity Limitations in Patients With Nonspecific Subacute and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) is frequently offered to people with nonspecific low back pain (LBP) but never compared with sham OMT for reducing LBP-specific activity limitations.

Objective: To compare the efficacy of standard OMT vs sham OMT for reducing LBP-specific activity limitations at 3 months in persons with nonspecific subacute or chronic LBP.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prospective, parallel-group, single-blind, single-center, sham-controlled randomized clinical trial recruited participants with nonspecific subacute or chronic LBP from a tertiary care center in France starting February 17, 2014, with follow-up completed on October 23, 2017.

Evolution and history of grapevine (Vitis vinifera) under domestication: new morphometric perspectives to understand seed domestication syndrome and reveal origins of ancient European cultivars.

Background And Aims: In spite of the abundance of archaeological, bio-archaeological, historical and genetic data, the origins, historical biogeography, identity of ancient grapevine cultivars and mechanisms of domestication are still largely unknown. Here, analysis of variation in seed morphology aims to provide accurate criteria for the discrimination between wild grapes and modern cultivars and to understand changes in functional traits in relation to the domestication process. This approach is also used to quantify the phenotypic diversity in the wild and cultivated compartments and to provide a starting point for comparing well-preserved archaeological material, in order to elucidate the history of grapevine varieties.

Differential interference contrast microscope using photonic crystals for phase imaging and three-dimensional shape reconstruction.

We present a differential interference contrast microscope using photonic crystals capable of real-time capture of both phase and amplitude components independently without moving parts. Unlike previous methods using rotating polarizers to discriminate each component, we propose using a special camera equipped with an arrayed polarizer whose instant polarization measurement allows real-time acquisition of the phase gradient information. A two-image algorithm is used to reconstruct the phase two-dimensional distribution of biological samples from the gradient information with a transmission-type microscope.