Publications by authors named "Michael S Beattie"

Article Synopsis
  • - The complex nature of spinal cord injury (SCI) creates challenges for translating research into practical treatments, leading to a need for advanced data science solutions to manage diverse injury data and outcomes.
  • - To address privacy concerns with sensitive data, a Private Data Commons for SCI (PDC-SCI) has been developed, enabling secure, organized data sharing among researchers for collaborative studies.
  • - An example of PDC-SCI in action is demonstrated through the VA Gordon Mansfield SCI Consortium, which integrates various data types to enhance research insights and knowledge discovery in SCI.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to compare the motor examinations done by the clinical neurosurgery team with the ISNCSCI assessments, since the latter can be time-consuming and impractical during acute spinal cord injuries.
  • - Researchers analyzed data from the TRACK-SCI registry, which included 72 pairs of motor examinations from 63 patients, and found strong correlations between the two methods, indicating that neurosurgery motor examinations can effectively substitute for ISNCSCI exams.
  • - The results showed a very high agreement between the scores from both types of examinations with low bias, suggesting that clinical neurosurgery evaluations are reliable for assessing neurological function after spinal cord injuries.
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Background: Although many molecules have been investigated as biomarkers for spinal cord injury (SCI) or ischemic stroke, none of them are specifically induced in central nervous system (CNS) neurons following injuries with low baseline expression. However, neuronal injury constitutes a major pathology associated with SCI or stroke and strongly correlates with neurological outcomes. Biomarkers characterized by low baseline expression and specific induction in neurons post-injury are likely to better correlate with injury severity and recovery, demonstrating higher sensitivity and specificity for CNS injuries compared to non-neuronal markers or pan-neuronal markers with constitutive expressions.

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Objective: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) following traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a significant clinical concern. This study sought to determine the incidence of VTE and hemorrhagic complications among patients with SCI who received low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) within 24 hours of injury or surgery and identify variables that predict VTE using the prospective Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in SCI (TRACK-SCI) database.

Methods: The TRACK-SCI database was queried for individuals with traumatic SCI from 2015 to 2022.

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Article Synopsis
  • Early paralysis after spinal cord injury is due to difficulty activating motor pools past their threshold, while later recovery struggles are linked to poor coordination from abnormal motor activation patterns.
  • The study was conducted on four adult male Rhesus monkeys to observe their EMG activity while performing various tasks before and after a spinal injury, with regular testing throughout a 24-week recovery period.
  • Initial recovery saw increased activation of motor pools compared to pre-injury levels, while later stages showed improved motor task performance, marked by reduced muscle co-contraction and enhanced selective activation.
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Large animal contusion models of spinal cord injury are an essential precursor to developing and evaluating treatment options for human spinal cord injury. Reducing variability in these experiments has been a recent focus as it increases the sensitivity with which treatment effects can be detected while simultaneously decreasing the number of animals required in a study. Here, we conducted a detailed review to explore if head and neck positioning in a cervical contusion model of spinal cord injury could be a factor impacting the biomechanics of a spinal cord injury, and thus, the resulting outcomes.

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Article Synopsis
  • - This study utilized the TRACK-SCI database to assess complications and outcomes in elderly patients (≥ 65 years) following spinal cord injuries between 2015 and 2019 at UCSF.
  • - Results revealed a high complication rate, with 100% of patients experiencing at least one complication—averaging about 6.6 each—primarily from cardiovascular and pulmonary issues, and a 10% in-hospital mortality rate.
  • - The use of vasopressors for maintaining blood pressure was prevalent, notably correlating with higher cardiovascular complications, and only a small percentage (7.5%) showed neurological improvement by discharge.
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We used viral intersectional tools to map the entire projectome of corticospinal neurons associated with fine distal forelimb control in Fischer 344 rats and rhesus macaques. In rats, we found an extraordinarily diverse set of collateral projections from corticospinal neurons to 23 different brain and spinal regions. Remarkably, the vast weighting of this "motor" projection was to sensory systems in both the brain and spinal cord, confirmed by optogenetic and transsynaptic viral intersectional tools.

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Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health problem. Despite considerable research deciphering injury pathophysiology, precision therapies remain elusive. Here, we present large-scale data sharing and machine intelligence approaches to leverage TBI complexity.

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Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) is becoming increasingly more accessible to biomedical researchers with significant potential to transform biomedicine through optimization of highly-accurate predictive models and enabling better understanding of disease biology. Automated machine learning (AutoML) in particular is positioned to democratize artificial intelligence (AI) by reducing the amount of human input and ML expertise needed. However, successful translation of AI/ML in biomedicine requires moving beyond optimizing only for prediction accuracy and towards establishing reproducible clinical and biological inferences.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to determine how fluctuations in mean arterial pressures (MAPs) during surgery affect recovery outcomes in patients with acute spinal cord injury, focusing on maintaining MAPs between 76 and 104 mm Hg.
  • Researchers analyzed data from 74 patients, monitoring their hemodynamic parameters during surgery, and found a significant improvement in neurological function, as measured by the American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS), with an average increase of 0.71 levels upon discharge.
  • Key findings revealed that maintaining average intraoperative MAPs between 80 and 96 mm Hg was associated with better recovery, while MAPs above 96.3 mm Hg showed no improvement, highlighting the importance of careful MAP management in surgical
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Spinal cord injuries (SCIs) frequently occur in combination with other major organ injuries, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) and injuries to the chest, abdomen, and musculoskeletal system (e.g., extremity, pelvic, and spine fractures).

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Research using nonhuman primate models for human disease frequently requires behavioral observational techniques to quantify functional outcomes. The ability to assess reaching and grasping patterns is of particular interest in clinical conditions that affect the motor system (e.g.

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Background: Predicting neurological recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI) is challenging. Using topological data analysis, we have previously shown that mean arterial pressure (MAP) during SCI surgery predicts long-term functional recovery in rodent models, motivating the present multicenter study in patients.

Methods: Intra-operative monitoring records and neurological outcome data were extracted (n = 118 patients).

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Meta-analyses suggest that the published literature represents only a small minority of the total data collected in biomedical research, with most becoming 'dark data' unreported in the literature. Dark data is due to publication bias toward novel results that confirm investigator hypotheses and omission of data that do not. Publication bias contributes to scientific irreproducibility and failures in bench-to-bedside translation.

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Diagnosis of spinal cord injury (SCI) severity at the ultra-acute stage is of great importance for emergency clinical care of patients as well as for potential enrollment into clinical trials. The lack of a diagnostic biomarker for SCI has played a major role in the poor results of clinical trials. We analyzed global gene expression in peripheral white blood cells during the acute injury phase and identified 197 genes whose expression changed after SCI compared with healthy and trauma controls and in direct relation to SCI severity.

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Conventional MRI measures of traumatic spinal cord injury severity largely rely on 2-dimensional injury characteristics such as intramedullary lesion length and cord compression. Recent advances in spinal cord (SC) analysis have led to the development of a robust anatomic atlas incorporated into an open-source platform called the Spinal Cord Toolbox (SCT) that allows for quantitative volumetric injury analysis. In the current study, we evaluate the prognostic value of volumetric measures of spinal cord injury on MRI following registration of T2-weighted (T2w) images and segmented lesions from acute SCI patients with a standardized atlas.

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Non-human primate (NHP) models are the closest approximation of human spinal cord injury (SCI) available for pre-clinical trials. The NHP models, however, include broader morphological variability that can confound experimental outcomes. We developed subject-specific finite element (FE) models to quantify the relationship between impact mechanics and SCI, including the correlations between FE outcomes and tissue damage.

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Objective: Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a dreaded condition that can lead to paralysis and severe disability. With few treatment options available for patients who have suffered from SCI, it is important to develop prospective databases to standardize data collection in order to develop new therapeutic approaches and guidelines. Here, the authors present an overview of their multicenter, prospective, observational patient registry, Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in SCI (TRACK-SCI).

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Study Design: Retrospective analysis.

Objective: To assess the impact of mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) during surgical intervention for spinal cord injury (SCI) on motor recovery.

Setting: Level-one Trauma Hospital and Acute Rehabilitation Hospital in San Jose, CA, USA.

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Background: Spinal cord injury induces inflammatory responses that include the release of cytokines and the recruitment and activation of macrophages and microglia. Neuroinflammation at the lesion site contributes to secondary tissue injury and permanent locomotor dysfunction. Dexmedetomidine (DEX), a highly selective α2-adrenergic receptor agonist, is anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective in both preclinical and clinical trials.

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Objective: We sought to report the safety of implementation of a novel standard of care protocol using spinal cord perfusion pressure (SCPP) maintenance for managing traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) in lieu of mean arterial pressure goals at a U.S. Level I trauma center.

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