A training tool for clinicians in segmenting medical images to make 3D models.

Introduction: 3D models produced from medical imaging can be used to plan treatment, design prosthesis, teach and for communication. Despite the clinical benefit, few clinicians have experience of how 3D models are produced.This is the first study evaluating a training tool to teach clinicians to produce 3D models and reporting the perceived impact on their clinical practice.

Mechanosensitive pathways are regulated by mechanosensitive miRNA clusters in endothelial cells.

Shear stress is known to affect many processes in (patho-) physiology through a complex, multi-molecular mechanism, termed mechanotransduction. The sheer complexity of the process has raised questions how mechanotransduction is regulated. Here, we comprehensively evaluate the literature about the role of small non-coding miRNA in the regulation of mechanotransduction.

Role of endothelial permeability hotspots and endothelial mitosis in determining age-related patterns of macromolecule uptake by the rabbit aortic wall near branch points.

Background And Aims: Transport of macromolecules between plasma and the arterial wall plays a key role in atherogenesis. Scattered hotspots of elevated endothelial permeability to macromolecules occur in the aorta; a fraction of them are associated with dividing cells. Hotspots occur particularly frequently downstream of branch points, where lesions develop in young rabbits and children.

Comparison of Statistical Methods for Assessing Spatial Correlations Between Maps of Different Arterial Properties.

Assessing the anatomical correlation of atherosclerosis with biomechanical localizing factors is hindered by spatial autocorrelation (SA), wherein neighboring arterial regions tend to have similar properties rather than being independent, and by the use of aggregated data, which artificially inflates correlation coefficients. Resampling data at lower resolution or reducing degrees-of-freedom in significance tests negated effects of SA but only in artificial situations where it occurred at a single length scale. Using Fourier or wavelet transforms to generate autocorrelation-preserving surrogate datasets, and thus to compute the null distribution, avoided this problem.