Inner ear decompression sickness after a routine dive and recompression chamber drill.

Inner ear decompression sickness (IEDCS) is an uncommon diving-related injury affecting the vestibulocochlear system, with symptoms typically including vertigo, tinnitus, and hearing loss, either in isolation or combination. Classically associated with deep, mixed-gas diving, more recent case series have shown that IEDCS is indeed possible after seemingly innocuous recreational dives, and there has been one previous report of IEDCS following routine hyperbaric chamber operations. The presence of right-to-left shunt (RLS), dehydration, and increases in intrathoracic pressure have been identified as risk factors for IEDCS, and previous studies have shown a predominance of vestibular rather than cochlear symptoms, with a preference for lateralization to the right side.

[Neurology: what's new in 2022].

The year 2022 was marked by the development of numerous new treatments for refractory myasthenia gravis. The link between epilepsy and cerebrovascular disorder was studied and lamotrigine discovered to be the optimal treatment choice for epilepsy secondary to stroke to prevent mortality on patient of 45 years and older. New randomized study finally demonstrated the utility of thrombectomy in selected patients with basilar artery occlusion.

A citizen centred urban network for weather and air quality in Australian schools.

High-quality, standardized urban canopy layer observations are a worldwide necessity for urban climate and air quality research and monitoring. The Schools Weather and Air Quality (SWAQ) network was developed and distributed across the Greater Sydney region with a view to establish a citizen-centred network for investigation of the intra-urban heterogeneity and inter-parameter dependency of all major urban climate and air quality metrics. The network comprises a matrix of eleven automatic weather stations, nested with a web of six automatic air quality stations, stretched across 2779 km, with average spacing of 10.

Ulnar neuropathy at the elbow: Reappraisal of the wrist-upper arm latency difference between ulnar and median nerves.

Objectives: To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the latency difference (DLat) between ulnar and median nerves of the arm after stimulation at the wrist; one of the easiest techniques proposed for recognizing ulnar neuropathy at the elbow (UNE). As latency difference is not a standardized technique, we set up a multicenter study to recruit large numbers of normal subjects and patients with UNE or generalized neuropathy.

Methods: Six centers participated in the study with data obtained from three groups of participants, controls (CTRLs), patients with UNE and patients with generalized neuropathy (GNP).

Conjunctival Autograft With Fibrin Glue for Pterygium: A Long Term Recurrence Assessment.

Pterygium is an old challenge for ophthalmic surgeons. Its final resolution is surgical intervention. New surgical techniques have been introduced to improve the outcome, however, the possibility of recurrence always exists.

Spiking Neural Networks applied to the classification of motor tasks in EEG signals.

Motivated by the recent progress of Spiking Neural Network (SNN) models in pattern recognition, we report on the development and evaluation of brain signal classifiers based on SNNs. The work shows the capabilities of this type of Spiking Neurons in the recognition of motor imagery tasks from EEG signals and compares their performance with other traditional classifiers commonly used in this application. This work includes two stages: the first stage consists of comparing the performance of the SNN models against some traditional neural network models.

Future changes in extreme weather and pyroconvection risk factors for Australian wildfires.

Extreme wildfires have recently caused disastrous impacts in Australia and other regions of the world, including events with strong convective processes in their plumes (i.e., strong pyroconvection).

Recurrent facial nerve baroparesis in a military diver: a case report.

Middle ear barotrauma is common in diving. However, facial nerve baroparesis is a relatively rare complication. A dehiscent facial nerve canal may be a predisposing factor to developing this complication.

[Neurology].

Thrombolysis and late thrombectomy can be performed in case of compatible radiological imaging. Anti-CGRP monoclonal antibodies seem more effective for the treatment of migraine. Siponimod can reduce significantly disability progression in secondarily progressive MS.

Role of Family Planning in Women With Multiple Sclerosis in Switzerland: Results of the Women With Multiple Sclerosis Patient Survey.

Women of child bearing age with multiple sclerosis (MS) must carefully consider treatments when planning a family, since disease modifying drugs (DMDs) are contraindicated during pregnancy. This questionnaire-based study aimed to improve understanding of the effect of family planning on treatment decisions in female, Swiss MS patients. Female patients with MS (aged 18-55 years) participated in the 26-question survey between September 2014 and August 2015.

SICUS and CEUS imaging in Crohn's disease: an update.

Endoscopy remains the main technique in the diagnosis and treatment of Crohn's disease (CD); nevertheless, the recent development of innovative and non-invasive imaging techniques has led to a new tool in the exploration of small bowel in CD patients. This paper reviews the available data on ultrasound imaging used for the evaluation of CD, highlighting the role of small intestine contrast-enhanced ultrasonography with the use of oral and intravenous contrast agents.

Spatial variation in the climatic predictors of species compositional turnover and endemism.

Previous research focusing on broad-scale or geographically invariant species-environment dependencies suggest that temperature-related variables explain more of the variation in reptile distributions than precipitation. However, species-environment relationships may exhibit considerable spatial variation contingent upon the geographic nuances that vary between locations. Broad-scale, geographically invariant analyses may mask this local variation and their findings may not generalize to different locations at local scales.

Quantifying high resolution transitional breaks in plant and mammal distributions at regional extent and their association with climate, topography and geology.

Objectives: We quantify spatial turnover in communities of 1939 plant and 59 mammal species at 2.5 km resolution across a topographically heterogeneous region in south-eastern Australia to identify distributional breaks and low turnover zones where multiple species distributions overlap. Environmental turnover is measured to determine how climate, topography and geology influence biotic turnover differently across a variety of biogeographic breaks and overlaps.

[Imaging diagnosis of Crohn disease].

Improvements in the ultrasound examination of bowel disease have registered in the last years the introduction of new technologies regarding high frequency probes (US), highly sensitive color or power Doppler units (CD-US), and the development of new non-linear technologies that optimize detection of microbubbles contrast agents responses. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CE-US) most importantly increases the results in sonographic evaluation of Crohn disease inflammatory activity. CE-US has become an imaging modality routinely employed in the clinical practice for the evaluation of parenchymal organs due to the introduction of new generation microbubble contrast agents which persist in the bloodstream for several minutes after intravenous injection.

Inflammatory activity in Crohn's disease: CE-US.

The evaluation of inflammatory activity in Crohn's disease (CD), a crucial aspect of treatment planning and monitoring, is currently based on a sum of clinical data and imaging findings. Among the contrast enhanced cross-sectional imaging techniques (CE-US, CE-CT, CE-MR), CE-US is less invasive, more comfortable for the patient, and has significant diagnostic accuracy. In addition, it is a portable, easily repeatable, well tolerated, and ionizing radiation-free imaging modality.

Penetrance of marked cognitive impairment in older male carriers of the FMR1 gene premutation.

Background: Male carriers of the FMR1 premutation are at risk of developing the fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS), a newly recognised and largely under-diagnosed late onset neurodegenerative disorder. Patients affected with FXTAS primarily present with cerebellar ataxia and intention tremor. Cognitive decline has also been associated with the premutation, but the lack of data on its penetrance is a growing concern for clinicians who provide genetic counselling.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasonographic evaluation of inflammatory activity in Crohn's disease.

Background & Aims: We sought to test the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound (US), color Doppler US (CD-US), and contrast-enhanced US (CE-US) in the evaluation of inflammatory activity in patients with Crohn's disease (CD), and to correlate the findings of these sonographic studies with inflammatory activity, as scored by the CD activity index (CDAI).

Methods: Patients with CD were enrolled in the study. Radiologists performing the scans were blinded to clinical status.

Inflammatory activity in Crohn disease: ultrasound findings.

Improvements in the ultrasound examination of bowel disease have registered in the last years the introduction of new technologies regarding high frequency probes (US), highly sensitive color or power Doppler units (CD-US), and the development of new non-linear technologies that optimize detection of contrast agents. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CE-US) most importantly increases the results in sonographic evaluation of Crohn disease inflammatory activity. CE-US has become an imaging modality routinely employed in the clinical practice for the evaluation of parenchymal organs due to the introduction of new generation microbubble contrast agents which persist in the bloodstream for several minutes after intravenous injection.

Characterization of focal liver lesions in real time using harmonic imaging with high mechanical index and contrast agent levovist.

Objective: The aim of this study was to characterize focal hepatic lesions using agent detection imaging and Levovist.

Materials And Methods: Sixty-five patients (21 male and 44 female; age range, 8-82 years; mean +/- standard deviation, 58.1 +/- 14.