Effect of Body Habitus on Radiation Dose During CT Fluoroscopy-Guided Spine Injections.

This study investigated the degree to which body habitus influences radiation dose during CT fluoroscopy (CTF)-guided lumbar epidural steroid injections (ESI). An anthropomorphic phantom containing metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) detectors was scanned at two transverse levels to simulate upper and lower lumbar CTF-guided ESI. Circumferential layers of adipose-equivalent material were sequentially added to model patients of three sizes: small (cross-sectional dimensions 25×30 cm), average (34×39 cm), and oversize (43×48 cm).

Resolution of syringohydromyelia with targeted CT-guided epidural blood patching.

In the scientific literature, syringohydromyelia has only rarely been reported in association with spontaneous intracranial hypotension. Management of the syringohydromyelia in these patients has heretofore involved relatively invasive surgical procedures. The authors report the first case of syringohydromyelia in the setting of intracranial hypotension successfully treated with CT-guided epidural blood patches.

Quantitative diffuse reflectance and fluorescence spectroscopy: tool to monitor tumor physiology in vivo.

This study demonstrates the use of optical spectroscopy for monitoring tumor oxygenation and metabolism in response to hyperoxic gas breathing. Hemoglobin saturation and redox ratio were quantified for a set of 14 and 9 mice, respectively, measured at baseline and during carbogen breathing (95% O(2), 5% CO(2)). In particular, significant increases in hemoglobin saturation and fluorescence redox ratio were observed upon carbogen breathing.

In vivo bioluminescence imaging monitoring of hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha, a promoter that protects cells, in response to chemotherapy.

Objective: Bioluminescence imaging is a powerful technique that has shown that hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1), a transcription factor that protects tumor cells from hypoxia, is up-regulated in tumors after radiation therapy. We tested the hypothesis that bioluminescence imaging would successfully and noninvasively depict an increase in HIF-1 in the novel therapeutic environment of chemotherapy and that, as in radiation therapy, the underlying mechanism involves inducible nitric oxide synthase originating in macrophages. Active HIF-1 consists of alpha and beta subunits that bind to promoter sequences in many genes, including those that protect endothelial cells, promote angiogenesis, and alter metastasis and tumor cell metabolism.

When strangers pass: processing of mutual and averted social gaze in the superior temporal sulcus.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated brain activity evoked by mutual and averted gaze in a compelling and commonly experienced social encounter. Through virtual-reality goggles, subjects viewed a man who walked toward them and shifted his neutral gaze either toward (mutual gaze) or away (averted gaze) from them. Robust activity was evoked in the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and fusiform gyrus (FFG).