: This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of oral hydrolyzed collagen peptide (HCP) in healthy females by assessing the skin parameters via biophysical and skin imaging techniques. : 112 females were randomly assigned to receive either HCP ( = 57; 10 g CollaSel Pro) or placebo ( = 55; 10 g maltodextrin) daily for eight weeks. The contribution of HCP to skin elasticity, hydration, and roughness was investigated against a placebo, while the facial soft tissue sagging (RMS) and safety data were also recorded.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(1) Background: Schroth exercise can reduce the deformity of the spine and improve the life quality and the body image of patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). (2) Methods: The study began with 49 participants, aged 10-16 years old, who were diagnosed with AIS. At the end of the study, 37 patients were randomly assigned to either the Supervised (n = 19) or Home-Based Schroth Exercise Group (n = 18) and completed the study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Knowing the morphological, kinematic, and electrophysiological parameters of the smile in healthy individuals may contribute to evaluating, planning, and monitoring the smile reanimation. This study aimed to determine the correlation between 3D morphometric changes, movement kinematics, and muscle activity in the facial soft tissue of healthy individuals.
Method: In this cohort study, 20 volunteers were selected from healthy individuals with no facial disorders.
Background: Although personalized polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) implant production molds for cranioplasty are costly and time-consuming, they allow for better-quality implants. The researchers quantitatively tested the contribution of simplified, low-cost techniques to cosmetic improvement.
Methods: PMMA prosthesis was placed in a 25-year-old male patient due to osteolysis in the bone flap removed after decompression surgery.
Facial Plast Surg Aesthet Med
November 2023
Identifying stable anatomical landmarks during facial expressions is necessary to register and align three-dimensional (3D) data, determine the common origin and motion axis, and calculate displacement, velocity, and acceleration of relative motion. Our study aimed to determine the stable anatomical landmarks during facial expressions. We included 30 volunteers in our study and asked them to perform resting, mouth opening, showing teeth, clenching teeth, eye closure, smiling, whistling, eyebrow raising, and disgusted facial expressions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Depth sensor-based motion analysis systems are of interest to researchers with low cost, fast analysis capabilities, and portability; thus, their reliability is a matter of interest. Our study examined the agreement and reliability in estimating the basic shoulder movements of Azure Kinect, Microsoft's state-of-the-art depth sensor, and its predecessor, Kinect v2, by comparing them with the gold standard marker-based motion analysis system.
Methods: In our study, the shoulder joint ranges of motion of 20 healthy individuals were analyzed during dominant-side flexion, abduction, and rotation movements.
Functional recovery is provided by some neurotrophic factors released from the near vicinity of the injury site. Ultrasound treatment is known to increase neurotrophic factor expression. This study was aimed at determining the effect of ultrasound treatment on the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), its receptors and new vessel formation after facial nerve injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg
December 2021
Background: Clinicians need accurate, reproducible, fast, and cost-effective grading systems to determine facial functions. There is currently no internationally accepted objective method to report the loss of function at the onset of facial paralysis and subsequent recovery. Our study aimed to test a three-dimensional handheld light scanner's efficacy for grading facial paralysis and monitoring recovery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Spinal deformities due to adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) result in impairment in the back surface topography. Sophisticated interventions are needed that address different aspects of deformity. The purpose of our study is to test the reliability of hand-held 3D scanners on the assessment of AIS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHypoglossal-facial nerve anastomosis (HFA) aims to reanimate denervated mimic muscles with hypoglossal axons when the transected facial nerve is not accessible. The aim of this study was to evaluate the recovery of HFA using a "Y" tube in two variants: (1) the proximal stump of the hypoglossal nerve was entubulated to the "Y" tube (classic "Y" tube HFA) and (2) the "Y" tube was sutured to an epineurial window of a slightly damaged hypoglossal nerve (end-to-side "Y" tube HFA). A total of 48 adult female rats were divided into four groups: intact controls (group 1), sham operated (group 2), classic "Y" tube HFA (group 3) and end-to-side "Y" tube HFA (group 4).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The three-dimensional morphological analysis of facial expressions has been becoming increasingly common and hand-held three-dimensional scanners can be advantageous in data acquisition due to their mobility. The aim of the present study was to test intra-subject, intra-observer and inter-observer reproducibility and reliability of a hand-held scanner during facial expressions.
Materials And Methods: In order to investigate intra-subject reproducibility and reliability, we performed face scanning two times on 30 healthy subjects at three-month intervals.
The aim of the present study is to test whether ultrasound therapy of muscles denervated by nerve injury would improve the quality of their reinnervation by reduction of the collateral axonal branching at the lesion site and poly-innervation degree at the neuromuscular junctions. After transection and suture of the buccal branch of the facial nerve, pulsed or continuous type of ultrasound therapy was applied to the paralyzed whisker pad muscles of rats in the course of 2 months. Instead of reduction, we found a significant increase in the collateral axonal branching after continuous ultrasound therapy when compared to the branching determined after pulsed or sham ultrasound therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Following spinal cord injury (SCI), exercise training provides a wide range of benefits and promotes activity-dependent synaptic plasticity. Whole body vibration (WBV) in SCI patients improves walking and spasticity as well as bone and muscle mass. However, little is known about the effects of timing or frequency of intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: An accurate assessment of range and localization of facial asymmetry is essential to restore facial symmetry. Establishment of a common and well-accepted calculation method might facilitate the interpretation of the assessment results. The aim of the present study was to analyze the global and partial asymmetry of facial soft tissues using 3 different calculation methods and investigate the relationships among them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe facial nerve is the most frequently damaged nerve in head and neck trauma. Patients undergoing facial nerve reconstruction often complain about disturbing abnormal synkinetic movements of the facial muscles (mass movements, synkinesis) which are thought to result from misguided collateral branching of regenerating motor axons and reinnervation of inappropriate muscles. Here, we examined whether use of an aorta Y-tube conduit during reconstructive surgery after facial nerve injury reduces synkinesis of orbicularis oris (blink reflex) and vibrissal (whisking) musculature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The aquaporin family comprises a large family of integral membrane proteins that enable the movement of water and other small, neutral solutes across plasma membranes. Although function and mechanism of aquaporins in central nervous system injury have been reported, the pathophysiologic role of aquaporin 1 (AQP1) in peripheral nerve has not been extensively documented. In the present study, we aimed to study the temporal and spatial distribution of AQP1 in spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia after sciatic nerve injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFacial nerve injury is a common clinical trauma involving long-term functional deficits with facial asymmetry leading to associated psychological issues and social hardship. We have recently shown that repair by hypoglossal-facial or facial-facial nerve surgical end-to-end anastomosis and suture [hypoglossal-facial anastomosis (HFA) or facial-facial anastomosis (FFA)] results in collateral axonal branching, polyinnervation of neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) and poor function. We have also shown that another HFA repair procedure using an isogenic Y-tube (HFA + Y-tube) and involving a 10-mm gap reduces collateral axonal branching, but fails to reduce polyinnervation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhole-body vibration (WBV) is a relatively novel form of exercise used to improve neuromuscular performance in healthy individuals. Its usefulness as a therapy for patients with neurological disorders, in particular spinal cord injury (SCI), has received little attention in clinical settings and, surprisingly, even less in animal SCI models. We performed severe compression SCI at a low-thoracic level in Wistar rats followed by daily WBV starting 7 (10 rats) or 14 (10 rats) days after injury (WBV7 and WBV14, respectively) and continued over a 12-week post-injury period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA four-headed biceps brachii muscle and three-headed coracobrachialis muscle, high-originated radial artery and communication between the median and musculocutaneous nerves have been well documented in the available literature. However co-existence of these variations is rare. In this study we aimed to describe multiple variations in the upper limb and discuss their co-existence from clinical and embryological points of view.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite increased understanding of peripheral nerve regeneration, functional recovery after surgical repair remains disappointing. A major contributing factor is the extensive collateral branching at the lesion site, which leads to inaccurate axonal navigation and aberrant reinnervation of targets.
Objective: To determine whether the Y tube reconstruction improved axonal regrowth and whether this was associated with improved function.
Purpose: The outcome of severe peripheral nerve injuries requiring surgical repair (transection and suture) is usually poor. Recent work suggests that direct suture of nerves increases collagen production and provides unfavourable conditions for a proper axonal regrowth. We tested whether entubulation of the hypoglossal nerve into a Y-tube conduit connecting it with the zygomatic and buccal facial nerve branches would improve axonal pathfinding at the lesion site, quality of muscle reinnervation and recovery of vibrissal whisking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInsufficient recovery after peripheral nerve injury has been attributed to (i) poor pathfinding of regrowing axons, (ii) excessive collateral axonal branching at the lesion site and (iii) polyneuronal innervation of the neuromuscular junctions (NMJ). The facial nerve transection model has been used initially to measure restoration of function after varying therapies and to examine the mechanisms underlying their effects. Since it is very difficult to control the navigation of several thousand axons, efforts concentrated on collateral branching and NMJ-polyinnervation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNerve repair after facial nerve injury provides neural input to the distal facial nerve and facial musculature via a variety of motor nerves such as hypoglossal, spinal accessory, masseteric branch of the trigeminal nerve and motor branches of the cervical plexus. The most commonly used procedure is the hypoglossal-facial nerve transfer. This cross-nerve paradigm is a unique nerve repair method as one motor nerve takes over the function of another motor nerve.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrecise assessment of motor deficits after traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) in rodents is crucial for understanding the mechanisms of functional recovery and testing therapeutic approaches. Here we analyzed the applicability to a rat SCI model of an objective approach, the single-frame motion analysis, created and used for functional analysis in mice. Adult female Wistar rats were subjected to graded compression of the spinal cord.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: Treatment of the craniofacial malformations is a primary goal of cranio-maxillo-facial surgeons. Surgical treatment of these malformations requires accurate data. Accuracy of measurement should be a priority of scientists to prevent statistical errors and therefore to promote the comparison of the results obtained from various research groups.
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