The Da Vinci Robot, a Promising Yet Underused Minimally Invasive Tool for Spine Surgery: a Scoping Review of its Current Role and Limits.

Background: The Da Vinci robot ® (DVR), released in the early 2000s, provided a set of innovation aiming at pushing minimally invasive surgery forward. Its stereoscopic magnified visualization camera, motions that exceed the natural range of the human hand, or tremor reduction enhanced the surgeon's skills and added value in many surgical fields.

Objective: To map the current use of the DVR in spine surgery, identify gaps, address its limits and future perspectives.

Exploring the effect of displacement rate on the mechanical properties of denticulate ligaments through uniaxial tensile testing.

Denticulate ligaments play a key role in stabilizing the spinal cord (SC). Accurate representation of these structures in finite element modelling, whether in quasi-static or dynamic conditions, is essential for providing biofidelic responses. Therefore, understanding, characterizing and comparing the tensile mechanical properties of denticulate ligaments at different loading velocities is crucial.

Mechanical differences of anterior and posterior spinal nerve roots revealed by tensile testing.

Cervical spondylotic myelopathy can damage the nerves and structures of the subarachnoidal canal. The spinal cord is attached to the subarachnoidal canal via structures such as nerve roots (NR), which play an important role in its positioning and can be affected by cervical spondylotic myelopathy Understanding the tensile mechanical properties of nerve roots is therefore crucial. A total of 37 swine nerve samples (15 bundles, 12 posterior roots, and 10 anterior roots) were mechanically tested within 12 h of sacrifice by a tensile test on a Mach 1 system (Biomomentum, Montreal, Canada) equipped with a 17 N load cell.

Cerebro-spinal flow pattern in the cervical subarachnoid space of healthy volunteers: Influence of the spinal cord morphology.

Introduction: Toward further cerebro-spinal flow quantification in clinical practice, this study aims at assessing the variations in the cerebro spinal fluid flow pattern associated with change in the morphology of the subarachnoid space of the cervical canal of healthy humans by developing a computational fluid dynamics model.

Methods: 3D T2-space MRI sequence images of the cervical spine were used to segment 11 cervical subarachnoid space. Model validation (time-step, mesh size, size and number of boundary layers, influences of parted inflow and inflow continuous velocity) was performed a 40-year-old patient-specific model.

Monte Carlo simulations of microdosimetry and radiolytic species production at long time post proton irradiation using GATE and Geant4-DNA.

Background: Radiobiological effectiveness of radiation in cancer treatment can be studied at different scales (molecular till organ scale) and different time post irradiation. The production of free radicals and reactive oxygen species during water radiolysis is particularly relevant to understand the fundamental mechanisms playing a role in observed biological outcomes. The development and validation of Monte Carlo tools integrating the simulation of physical, physico-chemical and chemical stages after radiation is very important to maintain with experiments.