Improvements in Sleep Quality in Patients With Major Depressive and Generalized Anxiety Disorders Treated With Individualized, Parcel-Guided Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Introduction: Poor quality sleep has often been cited as a cause of lowered quality of life in patients with affective disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). As sleep and affective disorders are affected by multi-network interactions, we hypothesize that the modulation of the central executive network (CEN), salience, and default mode networks (DMNs) through individualized repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) may improve sleep and quality of life.

Methods: A retrospective analysis from 2020 to 2023 was conducted in patients with affective disorders at Cingulum Health.

Post-traumatic hyperoxia after pediatric TBI.

Objective: Hyperoxia has been suggested as a mechanism for secondary injury following adult traumatic brain injury (TBI), but its effects have not been well described in pediatric patients.

Methods: Pediatric (≤18yo) TBI patients were identified in a prospective institutional registry from October 2008 to April 2022. The first, highest, and the Area Under the Curve (AUC) PaO2 in the first 24 hours were collected and calculated for each patient from arterial blood gas reports after admission to the ICU.

Gender Disparity in Pediatric Surgery: An Evaluation of Pediatric Surgery Conference Participation.

Background: Leadership in academic conferences is an important factor for academic advancement. Underrepresentation of women in academic surgical conferences has been demonstrated in other subspecialties, but it has not been well-studied in pediatric surgery.

Methods: This retrospective descriptive study analyzes conference participation at 2 national pediatric surgery annual conference programs from 2003 to 2022.

Engineering extracellular vesicles for Alzheimer's disease: An emerging cell-free approach for earlier diagnosis and treatment.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder affecting over five million people globally and has no established cure. Current AD-related treatments only alleviate cognitive and behavioral symptoms and do not address disease onset or progression, underlining the unmet need to create an effective, innovative AD therapeutic. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as a new class of nanotherapeutics.

The Molecular Mechanisms Through Which Placental Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Promote Myelin Regeneration.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating degenerative disease characterized by an immunological attack on the myelin sheath leading to demyelination and axon degeneration. Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) and secreted extracellular vesicles (EVs) have become attractive targets as therapies to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as MS due to their potent immunomodulatory and regenerative properties. The placenta is a unique source of MSCs (PMSCs), demonstrates "fetomaternal" tolerance during pregnancy, and serves as a novel source of MSCs for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Bioengineered extracellular vesicle-loaded bioscaffolds for therapeutic applications in regenerative medicine.

Extracellular vesicle (EV)-based technologies represent a new advancement for disease treatment. EVs can be administered systemically, injected into the injury site directly, or applied locally in conjunction with bioengineered implantable scaffolds. Matrix-bound vesicles (MBVs), a special class of vesicles localized in association with the extracellular matrix (ECM), have been identified as critical bioactive factors and shown to mediate significant regenerative functions of ECM scaffolds.