Despite increased attention and preventive efforts, the prevalence of major adverse cardiovascular events continues to rise, resulting in profound concerns for both the individual and the population at large. Rapidly evolving biotechnologies, micro-computerization, communication, and battery design have led to widespread commercial adoption, use, and dependence on smart devices, and, more recently, biosensors. Currently worn and carried, smart devices such as mobile phones and smart watches possess impressive computational and communication capabilities, monitoring a variety of biometrics such as heart rate, blood pressure, and cardiac rhythm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPatients who have been injured by burns often suffer from persistent and debilitating post burn pruritus. Despite a myriad of therapeutic interventions and medications, this complex condition remains particularly difficult to ameliorate. Recently, a new generation of antipruritic medications has demonstrated clinical success in managing pruritus in a number of dermatologic, nephritic and hepatic disease states, targeting unique aspects of the pruritic pathways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to heal one's wounds is perhaps one of the most fundamental and critical of physiologic processes. This coordinated and closely regulated sequential biological process involves a variety of migratory and resident cells. The activation, modulation, balance, and control of these functions depend upon soluble mediators that activate cells and modulate their diverse functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTeeth are subject to a variety of mechanical forces and vectors. The periodontal ligament (PDL), fibrous tissue that connects the cementum of the tooth to the bony socket, plays a decisive role in transmitting force to alveolar bone via Sharpey fibers, transforming and converting these forces into biological signals. This interaction effects significant osteoblastic and osteoclastic responses via autocrine proliferative and paracrine responses.
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