Implicit bias in the patient descriptor "homeless" and its association with emergency department opioid administration and disposition.

Background: Biased language in provider documentation of marginalized patient populations has been shown to negatively influence patient management. There has been debate over the use of "homeless" as a descriptor of people experiencing homelessness (PEH), as it is a potentially biased term with negative connotations. This study explores the relationship between the use of the word "homeless" in Emergency Department (ED) provider documentation and admission rates, as well as intravenous (IV) vs.

Distinct neurophysiology during nonword repetition in logopenic and non-fluent variants of primary progressive aphasia.

Overlapping clinical presentations in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) variants present challenges for diagnosis and understanding pathophysiology, particularly in the early stages of the disease when behavioral (speech) symptoms are not clearly evident. Divergent atrophy patterns (temporoparietal degeneration in logopenic variant lvPPA, frontal degeneration in nonfluent variant nfvPPA) can partially account for differential speech production errors in the two groups in the later stages of the disease. While the existing dogma states that neurodegeneration is the root cause of compromised behavior and cortical activity in PPA, the extent to which neurophysiological signatures of speech dysfunction manifest independent of their divergent atrophy patterns remain unknown.

Tractography dissection variability: What happens when 42 groups dissect 14 white matter bundles on the same dataset?

White matter bundle segmentation using diffusion MRI fiber tractography has become the method of choice to identify white matter fiber pathways in vivo in human brains. However, like other analyses of complex data, there is considerable variability in segmentation protocols and techniques. This can result in different reconstructions of the same intended white matter pathways, which directly affects tractography results, quantification, and interpretation.

Cortically constrained shape recognition: Automated white matter tract segmentation validated in the pediatric brain.

Background And Purpose: Manual segmentation of white matter (WM) bundles requires extensive training and is prohibitively labor-intensive for large-scale studies. Automated segmentation methods are necessary in order to eliminate operator dependency and to enable reproducible studies. Significant changes in the WM landscape throughout childhood require flexible methods to capture the variance across the span of brain development.

Taking the sublexical route: brain dynamics of reading in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia.

Reading aloud requires mapping an orthographic form to a phonological one. The mapping process relies on sublexical statistical regularities (e.g.

MRI Measurement of Upper Cervical Spinal Cord Cross-Sectional Area in Children.

Background And Purpose: Neurological and neurodegenerative diseases can affect the spinal cord (SC) of pediatric patients. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows for in vivo quantification of SC atrophy via cross-sectional area (CSA). The study of CSA values in the general population is important to disentangle disease-related changes from intersubject variability.

Pulsed electromagnetic fields reduce acute inflammation in the injured rat-tail intervertebral disc.

Pro-inflammatory cytokines are recognized contributors to intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration and discogenic pain. We have recently reported the anti-inflammatory effect of pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) on IVD cells in vitro. Whether these potentially therapeutic effects are sufficiently potent to influence disc health in vivo has not been demonstrated.

Task-Free Functional Language Networks: Reproducibility and Clinical Application.

Intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) identified through task-free fMRI (tf-fMRI) offer the opportunity to investigate human brain circuits involved in language processes without requiring participants to perform challenging cognitive tasks. In this study, we assessed the ability of tf-fMRI to isolate reproducible networks critical for specific language functions and often damaged in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). First, we performed whole-brain seed-based correlation analyses on tf-fMRI data to identify ICNs anchored in regions known for articulatory, phonological, and semantic processes in healthy male and female controls (HCs).

Modic type 1 change is an autoimmune response that requires a proinflammatory milieu provided by the 'Modic disc'.

Background Context: Modic changes (MCs) are magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) evidence of inflammatory and fibrotic vertebral bone marrow lesions that associate with adjacent disc degeneration and end plate damage. Although MC etiology is uncertain, historical data suggest a linkage to an autoimmune response of bone marrow triggered by the nucleus pulposus (NP).

Purpose: The aim of this study was to test whether bone marrow has an autoimmune response to NP cells that is amplified by an inflammatory milieu and ultimately leads to MC development in vivo.