Impact of body-height increase on gastrocnemius muscle stiffness in children with cerebral palsy: A one-year prospective cohort study.

Objective: To investigate whether the impacts of height increase on gastrocnemius muscle (GM) stiffness are greater in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) than in those with typical development (TD).

Design: This one-year cohort study enrolled children (CP, 23; TD, 23) who underwent two measurements conducted at entry and after one year. Lateral and medial GM-strain ratios representing muscle stiffness were obtained using elastography.

Influence of Change in Echo Intensity of the Pretalar Fat Pad in Young Individuals With Chronic Ankle Instability.

This study aimed to investigate the echo intensity (EI) of the pretalar fat pad (PFP) in young individuals with chronic ankle instability (CAI) and clarify the relationship between changes in the PFP and the clinical characteristics of CAI. Using the Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI) scores, 26 limbs of 15 participants were divided into CAI (IdFAI score ≥11, male: eight limbs, female: six limbs, age: 21±1 years) and normal (IdFAI score <11, male: nine limbs, female: three limbs, age: 20±1 years) groups. The EI of the PFP was measured, and the luminosity ratio (LR) to the EI of the subcutaneous adipose tissue was calculated.

Strategies for unplanned gait termination at comfortable and fast walking speeds in children with cerebral palsy.

Collision avoidance while walking is necessary for safe living, and faster walking speeds tend to increase collision risk. However, gait termination strategies for patients with cerebral palsy (CP), from comfortable to faster speed, remain unexplored. This study aimed to analyze these strategies in children with CP compared to typically developing (TD) children at two different speeds.

Social Self-Sorting of Quasi-Racemates: A Unique Approach for Dual-Pore Molecular Crystals.

Despite recent advances in porous organic molecular crystals, the engineering of dual-pore systems within the intermolecular voids remains a significant challenge. In this study, we have achieved the crystallization-induced social self-sorting of "quasi-racemic" dialdehydes into a macrocyclic imine. X-ray crystallographic analysis unambiguously characterizes the resulting structure as incorporating two quasi-racemate pairs with four diamine molecules.

Loss of connectin novex-3 leads to heart dysfunction associated with impaired cardiomyocyte proliferation and abnormal nuclear mechanics.

Connectin (also known as titin) is a giant striated muscle protein that functions as a molecular spring by providing elasticity to the sarcomere. Novex-3 is a short splice variant of connectin whose physiological function remains unknown. We have recently demonstrated using in vitro analyses that in addition to sarcomere expression, novex-3 was also expressed in cardiomyocyte nuclei exclusively during fetal life, where it provides elasticity/compliance to cardiomyocyte nuclei and promotes cardiomyocyte proliferation in the fetus, suggesting a non-sarcomeric function.