Surmounting the ceiling effect of motor expertise by novel sensory experience with a hand exoskeleton.

For trained individuals such as athletes and musicians, learning often plateaus after extensive training, known as the "ceiling effect." One bottleneck to overcome it is having no prior physical experience with the skill to be learned. Here, we challenge this issue by exposing expert pianists to fast and complex finger movements that cannot be performed voluntarily, using a hand exoskeleton robot that can move individual fingers quickly and independently.

Intraluminal washout in rectal and sigmoid colon cancer surgeries with double-stapling technique anastomosis: A single-institution prospective study.

Aim: This study aimed to determine the necessity of intraluminal washout through cytological assessment to prevent implantation of exfoliated cancer cells (ECCs) in patients with rectal and sigmoid cancers.

Methods: We studied 140 patients with either sigmoid or rectal cancer who underwent anastomosis surgery using a double-stapling technique. An intraluminal washout sample was collected before and after irrigation with 1000, 1500, or 2000 mL of physiological saline or distilled water.

Enhanced somatosensory inhibition sharpens hand representation and sensorimotor skills in pianists.

Dexterous motor skills, like those needed for playing musical instruments and sports, require the somatosensory system to accurately and rapidly process somatosensory information from multiple body parts. This is challenging due to the convergence of afferent inputs from different body parts into a single neuron and the overlapping representation of neighboring body parts in the somatosensory cortices. How do trained individuals, such as pianists and athletes, manage this? Here, a series of five experiments with pianists and nonmusicians (female and male) shows that pianists have enhanced inhibitory function in the somatosensory system, which isolates the processing of somatosensory afferent inputs from each finger.

Impact of postoperative infectious complications on long-term prognosis after esophagectomy.

Background: Postoperative complications have been reported to be a risk factor for worse oncologic outcomes in patients with esophageal cancer. However, the impact of postoperative complications on prognosis after esophagectomy remains controversial. We aimed to investigate the factors that influence the prognosis of postoperative complications in patients who underwent oncological esophagectomy, focusing on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Prognostic significance and risk factors of mediastinal lymph node metastasis in esophagogastric junction cancer: a single-center, retrospective study.

Background: Although the optimal extent of lymph node dissection in esophagogastric junction cancer (EGJC) has been reported, the efficacy of mediastinal lymph node dissection remains unclear. We aimed to identify risk factors for mediastinal lymph node metastasis and its prognostic impact in patients with EGJC.

Methods: A total of 100 consecutive patients who underwent curative surgery for EGJC were eligible.