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Front Neurosci 2022 27;16:866161. Epub 2022 Apr 27.

Instituto de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de O'Higgins, Rancagua, Chile.

Cholinergic transmission is essential for survival and reproduction, as it is involved in several physiological responses. In the auditory system, both ascending and descending auditory pathways are modulated by cholinergic transmission, affecting the perception of sounds. The auditory efferent system is a neuronal network comprised of several feedback loops, including corticofugal and brainstem pathways to the cochlear receptor. Read More

J Biomed Mater Res B Appl Biomater 2022 May 14. Epub 2022 May 14.

Department of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Howrah, West Bengal, India.

This study aimed to understand the effect of physiological and dental implant-related parameter variations on the osseointegration for an implant-supported fixed prosthesis. Eight design factors were considered (implant shape, diameter, and length; thread pitch, depth, and profile; cantilever [CL] length and implant-loading protocol). Total 36 implantation scenarios were simulated using finite element method based on Taguchi L orthogonal array. Read More

Pediatr Emerg Care 2022 May 13. Epub 2022 May 13.

Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

Introduction: This study sought to characterize the mechanisms of injury responsible for common softball-related injuries in recent years.

Methods: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database was queried for all pediatric softball-related injuries presenting to participating US emergency departments from 2010 to 2019. Patients were classified by age as children (7-12 years), adolescents (13-18 years), or young adults (19-21 years). Read More

J Cancer Policy 2021 Jun 26;28:100279. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

Vienna Cancer Center (VCC), Vienna Medical University, BT86/E 01, Spitalgasse 23, 1090, Wien, Austria.

Background: Immunotherapies have revolutionized oncology, but their rapid expansion may potentially put healthcare budgets under strain. We developed an approach to reduce demand uncertainty and inform decision makers and payers of the potential health outcomes and budget impact of the anti-PD-1/PD-L1 class of immuno-oncology (IO) treatments.

Methods: We used partitioned survival modelling and budget impact analysis to estimate overall survival, progression-free survival, life years gained (LYG), and number of adverse events (AEs), comparing "worlds with and without" anti-PD-1/PD-L1s over five years. Read More

Cureus 2022 Apr 9;14(4):e23969. Epub 2022 Apr 9.

Internal Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso, El Paso, USA.

The sternoclavicular joint (SCJ) is an uncommon location for septic arthritis to occur in. Due to the rarity of the condition and the nonspecific symptoms, SCJ septic arthritis can be missed or mislabeled as osteoarthritis or muscle strain. Accurate history and physical examination is crucial for recognizing this condition. Read More

Comput Methods Programs Biomed 2022 Apr 17;220:106820. Epub 2022 Apr 17.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Punjab, India, 140001. Electronic address:

Background And Objective: Medical imaging-based finite element methods are more accurate tools for fracture risk prediction than the traditional aBMD based methods. However, these methods have drawbacks like geometric errors, high computational cost, mesh-dependent results, etc. In this article, the authors have proposed an isogeometric analysis-based nonlocal gradient-enhanced damage model to overcome some of these issues. Read More

Cancer Sci 2022 Apr 29. Epub 2022 Apr 29.

Division of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Graduate School of Medical science, Kanazawa University. Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is caused by infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and endemic in certain geographic regions. EBV lytic gene, BALF2, closely associates with viral reactivation and BALF2 gene variation, the H-H-H strain, causes NPC in endemic region, Southern China. Here, we investigate whether such EBV variations also affects NPC in non-endemic region, Japan. Read More

Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol 2022 Mar 12. Epub 2022 Mar 12.

Department of Oral Surgery, Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Stomatology & Shanghai Research Institute of Stomatology, Shanghai, China; National Clinical Research Center of Stomatology, Shanghai, China. Electronic address:

Objective: To analyze the biomechanical properties of a novel temporomandibular joint (TMJ) prosthesis with an attachment area for the lateral pterygoid muscle (LPM).

Study Design: Three prosthesis models were created and compared using finite element analysis for the displacement, stress, and strain when simulating the maximum bite force loading. A verification experiment and a compression test were conducted. Read More

Plant Dis 2022 Apr 25. Epub 2022 Apr 25.

Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 74594, Biotechnology Research Institute, Beidi Road No.2901, Shanghai, China, 201106;

Morel mushroom (Morchella spp.) is a rare edible fungus with high nutritional and medicinal value. In China they are cultivated in sandy soils in greenhouses and production of fresh mushrooms reached 10,000 tons in 2019. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 04 11;19(8). Epub 2022 Apr 11.

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ming Chi University of Technology, New Taipei 24301, Taiwan.

Prior investigations have been primarily conducted in a laboratory to examine the effects of the smartphone use on the neck and head positions, whether these results are applicable to actual conditions is still unknown. This field survey thus analyzed the neck flexion (NF), head flexion (HF), gaze angle (GA), and viewing distance (VD) of smartphone users in public areas in Taipei, Taiwan. Six hundred smartphone users (300 men and 300 women) were photographed sagittally in standing, supported sitting, or unsupported sitting postures while using a smartphone. Read More

Dev Psychobiol 2022 02;64(4):e22265

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Social interactions are essential for infant brain development, yet we know little about how infant functional connectivity differs between social and nonsocial contexts, or how sensitivity to differences between contexts might be related to early distal and proximal environmental factors. We compared 12-month-old infants' intrahemispheric electroencephalographic (EEG) coherence between a social and a nonsocial condition, then examined whether differences between conditions varied as a function of family economic strain and two maternal behaviors at 6 months, positive affect and infant-directed speech. We found lower EEG coherence from the frontal region to the central, parietal, temporal, and occipital regions during the social condition, but only for infants from higher-income families and infants whose mothers used higher proportions of infant-directed speech. Read More

J Voice 2022 Apr 18. Epub 2022 Apr 18.

Department of Pathology, Nanjing Tongren Hospital, School of Medicine, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.

Purpose: To explore the correlation between detection results of pepsin in vocal fold polyp tissues and the postoperative efficacy.

Methods: The clinical data of 112 patients with vocal fold polyp who received surgical procedures in our hospital from June 2019 to March 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The vocal fold morphology and vocal acoustic function were assessed at postoperative week 12. Read More

World J Gastrointest Endosc 2022 Mar;14(3):142-152

Department of Medicine, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi 74800, Sindh, Pakistan.

Background: Musculoskeletal injuries (MSI) have plagued endoscopists and ancillary staff for decades without any innovative and strong ergonomic guidelines. It has placed a physical and mental strain on our endoscopists and ancillary staff. We have very have limited data supporting this claim in our region and most data is supported by western literature. Read More

Am J Otolaryngol 2022 Mar 23;43(3):103405. Epub 2022 Mar 23.

Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX, United States of America. Electronic address:

Background: Cervical neck strain and surgical ergonomics is an increasingly important topic being addressed in this time and age. With new technologies, visualizations, and approaches to surgeries, there are now different strains and duration of strains to the cervical neck. Recently the effect of chronic cell phone use has been described as "text neck. Read More

Front Aging Neurosci 2022 28;14:846804. Epub 2022 Mar 28.

Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States.

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is a major hearing impairment characterized by pathological changes in both the peripheral and central auditory systems. Low-grade inflammation was observed in the cochlea of deceased human subjects with ARHL and animal models of early onset ARHL, which suggests that inflammation contributes to the development of ARHL. However, it remains elusive how chronic inflammation progresses during normal aging in the cochlea, and especially the accompanying changes of neuroinflammation in the central auditory system. Read More

Cureus 2022 Mar 9;14(3):e22984. Epub 2022 Mar 9.

Pathology, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar, IND.

Background and aim Combined use of ultrasonography and elastography improves diagnostic efficacy in differentiating benign from malignant cervical lymph nodes, thereby helping in treatment planning and reducing unnecessary fine needle aspiration cytology/ biopsy. This study aimed to correlate B-mode ultrasonography, color Doppler imaging, and elastography findings with pathological findings and to calculate sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of ultrasonography and elastography. Material and methods Patients underwent ultrasonography (B-mode and color Doppler imaging) followed by elastography. Read More

Ear Nose Throat J 2022 Apr 12:1455613221095606. Epub 2022 Apr 12.

Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, 12338University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA.

Misophonia is a chronic condition in which patients experience a strong negative, emotional, or psychologic reaction to specific sounds. These sounds cause the individual to have a sudden, uncontrolled, and disproportionate negative reaction affecting their daily activities. The literature describes several cases of misophonia in the adult population; however, only 2 pediatric case studies are reported. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022 03 23;19(7). Epub 2022 Mar 23.

Landspitali University Hospital, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland.

Subjective visual complaints are commonly reported in patients with neck pain, but their relation to objectively measured oculomotor functions during smooth pursuit neck torsion tests (SPNTs) has not yet been investigated. The aim of the study was to analyse classification accuracy of visual symptom intensity and frequency based on SPNT results. Forty-three patients with neck pain were referred by orthopaedic outpatient clinics where they were required to fill out 16-item proformas of visual complaints. Read More

J Biomech 2022 May 24;136:111039. Epub 2022 Mar 24.

School of Mechanical Engineering, The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Israel. Electronic address:

Background: Proximal humeri fractures at anatomical and surgical neck (∼5% and ∼50% incidence respectively) are frequent in elderly population. Yet, neither in-vitro experiments nor CT-based finite element analyses (CTFEA) have investigated these in depth. Herein we enhance (Dahan et al. Read More

Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2022 Apr 5:1945998221091696. Epub 2022 Apr 5.

Division of Pediatric Otolaryngology, Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

Academic medical centers striving to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and antiracism initiatives often ask faculty to volunteer substantial time to committee work, recruitment, mentoring, community, and administrative responsibilities. These requests are not in lieu of current workload and seldom count toward scholarship; the service may go unrecognized, unrewarded, and uncompensated. URiM faculty (underrepresented in medicine) providing such service thus pay a minority tax when precious time is syphoned away from career-advancing activities and personal growth. Read More

Facial Plast Surg Aesthet Med 2022 Apr 4. Epub 2022 Apr 4.

LifeNet Health, Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA.

Traditional gamma-irradiated allograft costal cartilage used for cartilage-depleted rhinoplasty patients contains cellular remnants that are potentially responsible for immunological stimulation and graft resorption. To determine whether decelullarized and/or chemically crosslinked rabbit costal and nasal septal cartilage allografts reduce the risk of allograft resorption. In vitro and in vivo analyses of septal and costal cartilage grafts in New Zealand white rabbits were carried out. Read More

J Mech Behav Biomed Mater 2022 06 28;130:105204. Epub 2022 Mar 28.

Istituto Ospedaliero Fondazione Poliambulanza, Head and Neck Department, Neurosurgery, via Bissolati, 57(BS), Italy; "Technology for Health" PhD Program, University of Brescia, Via Branze 38 (BS), Italy. Electronic address:

This study focuses on the variations in the brain tissue dynamic behaviour pointing out new insight into the material nonlinear viscoelasticity. Shear dynamic response curves are obtained in different working conditions in terms of strain sweep and superimposed static compression offsets (SCO) applied in orthogonal direction to the shear. The strain sweep mode is used to study the storage and loss moduli dependence on the amplitude of the applied strain. Read More

J Speech Lang Hear Res 2022 May 1;65(5):1742-1750. Epub 2022 Apr 1.

Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, China.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of medical masks on the voice quality of patients with voice disorders.

Method: We included 106 patients diagnosed with voice disorders. Among them, 59 were diagnosed with vocal-fold benign lesions, 27 with insufficient glottis closure, and 20 with precancerous lesions/early-stage glottic carcinoma. Read More

Soft Matter 2022 Apr 20;18(16):3147-3156. Epub 2022 Apr 20.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.

In this study, we investigate the transition between the Newtonian and the viscoelastic regimes during the pinch-off of droplets of dilute polymer solutions and discuss its link to the coil-stretch transition. The detachment of a drop from a nozzle is associated with the formation of a liquid neck that causes the divergence of the local stress in a vanishingly small region. If the liquid is a polymer solution, this increasing stress progressively unwinds the polymer chains, up to a point where the resulting increase in the viscosity slows down drastically the thinning. Read More

Comput Methods Programs Biomed 2022 Jun 18;219:106761. Epub 2022 Mar 18.

Department of Orthopedics, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China.

Background And Objective: Neural reflex is hypothesized as a regulating step in spine stabilizing system. However, neural reflex control is still in its infancy to consider in the previous finite element analysis of head-neck system for various applications. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of neural reflex control on neck biomechanical responses, then provide a new way to achieve an accurate biomechanical analysis for head-neck system with a finite element model. Read More

Clin Imaging 2022 Jun 22;86:61-66. Epub 2022 Mar 22.

Zhejiang Chinese Medical University The 2ND Clinical Medical College, PR China.

Purpose: To investigate the predictive values of gray-scale ultrasound (G-US) and strain elastic ultrasound (SE-US) radiomic features for cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis (CTL).

Material And Methods: The G-US and SE-US images of 147 patients with pathologically confirmed CTL and 69 non-CTL patients were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 851 imaging features were extracted. Read More

Microorganisms 2022 Feb 28;10(3). Epub 2022 Feb 28.

Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Kagoshima 890-8520, Japan.

Phosphorylcholine (PC) is a structural component of various pathogens and is involved in bacterial adhesion via the platelet-activating factor receptor (PAF-R). In this study, we investigated how PC expression affects cell adhesion and invasion of (). Eight clinical strains of were cultured, and PC expression was measured using fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Read More

J Anat 2022 Jun 24;240(6):1005-1019. Epub 2022 Mar 24.

Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina.

Dicraeosaurid sauropods are iconically characterized by the presence of elongate hemispinous processes in presacral vertebrae. These hemispinous processes can show an extreme degree of elongation, such as in the Argentinean forms Amargasaurus cazaui, Pilmatueia faundezi and Bajadasaurus pronuspinax. These hyperelongated hemispinous processes have been variably interpreted as a support structure for a padded crest/sail as a display, a bison-like hump or as the internal osseous cores of cervical horns. Read More

Materials (Basel) 2022 Mar 18;15(6). Epub 2022 Mar 18.

School of Mechano-Electronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710071, China.

Full-field measurements can provide a more complete description of the behavior of human whole tooth under load. To that end, in vitro experiments were carried out to measure the full-field buccal surface strains of human premolars free of caries and abrasion using digital image correlation (DIC). Experimental results show that both the value field and the orientation field of strains can be observed exactly, both of which contain a wealth of information. Read More

BMC Infect Dis 2022 Mar 23;22(1):280. Epub 2022 Mar 23.

Otorhinolaryngology Hospital, First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, 58 Zhongshan 2nd Road, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.

Background: Deep neck space abscess (DNSA) is a serious infection in the head and neck. Antibiotic therapy is an important treatment in patients with DNSA. However, the results of bacterial culture need at least 48 h, and the positive rate is only 30-50%, indicating that the use of empiric antibiotic treatment for most patients with DNSA should at least 48 h or even throughout the whole course of treatment. Read More