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Cureus Mar 2023Zenker's diverticulum (ZD) is a type of esophageal diverticulum, a relatively rare disease in the pharyngoesophageal area. It is a pulsion diverticulum, or false...
Zenker's diverticulum (ZD) is a type of esophageal diverticulum, a relatively rare disease in the pharyngoesophageal area. It is a pulsion diverticulum, or false diverticulum, located dorsally at the wall between the pharynx and esophagus. This area is known as Killian's triangle or dehiscence and is a region of relative weakness. Common symptoms of ZD include dysphagia, choking, persistent cough, loss of weight, hoarseness, halitosis, regurgitation of undigested food, and borborygmi within the cervical region. We are reporting a case of oropharyngeal dysphagia due to a ZD in a 65-year-old man with a history of worsening dysphagia for two years. Clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment options for ZD are discussed, along with the underlying pathophysiology of this condition.
PubMed: 37123671
DOI: 10.7759/cureus.36783 -
Plant Disease Oct 2022Eggplant ( L.) is an important vegetable cultivated in Mexico and the state of Sinaloa is the largest producer of eggplants with 90% of the country's total production....
Eggplant ( L.) is an important vegetable cultivated in Mexico and the state of Sinaloa is the largest producer of eggplants with 90% of the country's total production. In April 2022, eggplants cv. Barcelona exhibiting root-knot, stunted growth, and yellowing were detected in a greenhouse in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. Disease incidence was approximately 10% (1000 plants evaluated). Ten soil samples were collected from the greenhouse. An average of 400 root-knot nematode second-stage juveniles (J2s) were extracted from 100 g of soil for each sample. Roots were washed with tap water and dissected. Females and egg masses were obtained by dissecting galls. Microscopic examination of the perineal pattern of mature females (= 10) was round to ovoid, with rounded and high dorsal arch. Females (= 20) were globular to pear-shaped, body length of 645 to 739 µm, body width of 470 to 559 μm; the stylet was dorsally curved, 15.1 to 16.2 μm long, and with rounded stylet knobs; neck length of 195 to 202 µm and the distance from the base of the stylet to the dorsal gland orifice (DGO) was 4.2 to 5.8 µm. Second-stage juveniles were vermiform, annulated, and tapering at both ends. Morphological characteristics of the females and J2s were consistent with those reported for (Yang and Eisenback 1983). For molecular identification, total DNA was extracted from individual females according to the extraction protocol described by Hu et al. (2011), and the ribosomal intergenic spacer 2 (IGS2) was amplified by PCR using the specific primers Me-F/Me-R for (Long et al. 2006). PCR amplification generated a 236-bp fragment for the analyzed sample and the amplicon was sequenced. The sequence was deposited in GenBank under the accession number OP004802. BLASTn searches showed 100% identity with available sequences of from the USA (MH800967) and China (KP411228, MT742011). A phylogenetic tree including published IGS2 sequences for spp. was constructed based on Maximum Likelihood method. The phylogenetic analysis placed the sequence MeCUB in the same clade with . Pathogenicity tests were performed under greenhouse conditions by inoculating 5000 eggs of a pure population of on 10 healthy eggplants cv. Barcelona (30-day-old) grown in pots with sterilized soil. Five uninoculated eggplants were used as control. Plants were maintained at 26 to 34°C in a greenhouse for 35 days. Stunted growth and root-galling symptoms appeared on inoculated plants after 21 days, whereas control plants remained symptomless. Nematode reproduction factor (final population density/initial population density) was 0.93 and 2.28 at 28 and 35 days after inoculation, respectively. The nematode on the inoculated roots was morphologically identical to that observed on naturally infected roots in the field. The pathogenicity test was carried out twice with similar results. has been previously reported on eggplants in Puerto Rico (Rammah and Hirschmann 1988). To our knowledge, this is the first report of causing root-knot of eggplant in Mexico. This nematode is widely distributed in Sinaloa affecting other vegetable crops such as tomato (Martínez-Gallardo et al. 2015), chili (Carrillo-Fasio et al. 2020), and cucumber (Gómez-González et al. 2020), so future studies are required to evaluate integrated management strategies.
PubMed: 36302732
DOI: 10.1094/PDIS-08-22-1846-PDN -
WIREs Mechanisms of Disease Sep 2021The spinal cord is functionally and anatomically divided into ventrally derived motor circuits and dorsally derived somatosensory circuits. Sensory stimuli originating... (Review)
Review
The spinal cord is functionally and anatomically divided into ventrally derived motor circuits and dorsally derived somatosensory circuits. Sensory stimuli originating either at the periphery of the body, or internally, are relayed to the dorsal spinal cord where they are processed by distinct classes of sensory dorsal interneurons (dIs). dIs convey sensory information, such as pain, heat or itch, either to the brain, and/or to the motor circuits to initiate the appropriate response. They also regulate the intensity of sensory information and are the major target for the opioid analgesics. While the developmental mechanisms directing ventral and dorsal cell fates have been hypothesized to be similar, more recent research has suggested that dI fates are specified by novel mechanisms. In this review, we will discuss the molecular events that specify dorsal neuronal patterning in the spinal cord, thereby generating diverse dI identities. We will then discuss how this molecular understanding has led to the development of robust stem cell methods to derive multiple spinal cell types, including the dIs, and the implication of these studies for treating spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. This article is categorized under: Neurological Diseases > Stem Cells and Development.
Topics: Cell Differentiation; Interneurons; Neurons; Spinal Cord; Touch
PubMed: 34730293
DOI: 10.1002/wsbm.1520 -
Developmental Biology Jul 2018Amphibian embryos provide a powerful system to study early cell fate determination because their eggs are externally fertilised, large, and easy to manipulate....
Amphibian embryos provide a powerful system to study early cell fate determination because their eggs are externally fertilised, large, and easy to manipulate. Ultraviolet (UV) or lithium chloride (LiCl) treatment are classic embryonic manipulations frequently used to perturb specification of the dorso-ventral (DV) axis by affecting the stability of the maternal Wnt mediator β-catenin. Such treatments result in the formation of so-called ventralised or dorsalised embryos. Although these phenotypes have been well described with respect to their morphology and some aspects of gene expression, their whole transcriptomes have never been systematically characterised and compared. Here we show that at the early gastrula stage UV-treated embryos are transcriptionally more closely related to untreated embryos than to LiCl-treated embryos. Transcriptional comparisons with dissected ventral and dorsal regions of unperturbed gastrula embryos indicate that UV and LiCl treatments indeed enrich for ventral and dorsal cells, respectively. However, these treatments also affect the balance of neural induction in the ectodermal germ layer, with LiCl stimulating pro-neural BMP inhibition and UV preferentially generating epidermis because of elevated BMP levels. Thus the transcriptomes of UV- and LiCl-treated embryos can best be described as ventro-epidermalised and dorso-neuralised. These descriptions notwithstanding, our profiling reveals several hitherto uncharacterized genes with differential expression along the DV axis. At least one of these genes, a RNF220-like ubiquitin ligase, is activated dorsally by β-catenin. Our analysis of UV/LiCl-mediated axis perturbation will enhance the mechanistic understanding of DV axis determination in vertebrates.
Topics: Animals; Body Patterning; Gastrula; Gastrulation; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; Germ Layers; Lithium Chloride; Signal Transduction; Transcriptome; Ultraviolet Rays; Wnt Proteins; Xenopus; Xenopus Proteins
PubMed: 29709598
DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2018.04.022 -
Scientific Reports Dec 2020Visual perception of actions and objects has been shown to activate different cortical systems: action perception system spanning more dorsally, across parietal,...
Visual perception of actions and objects has been shown to activate different cortical systems: action perception system spanning more dorsally, across parietal, frontal, and dorsal temporal regions; object perception relying more strongly the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC). Compared to the well-established object-domain structure (e.g., faces vs. artifacts) in VOTC, it is less known whether the action perception system is constrained by similar domain principle and whether it communicates with the ventral object recognition system in a domain-specific manner. In a fMRI long-block experiment designed to evaluate both regional activity and task-based functional connectivity (FC) patterns, participants viewed animated videos of a human performing two domains of actions to the same set of meaningless shapes without object-domain information: social-communicative-actions (e.g., waving) and manipulation-actions (e.g., folding). We observed action-domain-specific activations, with the superior temporal sulcus and the right precentral region responding more strongly during social-communicative-action perception; the supramarginal gyrus, inferior and superior parietal lobe, and precentral gyrus during manipulation-action perception. The two domains of action perception systems communicated with VOTC in domain-specific manners: FC between the social-communicative-action system and the bilateral fusiform face area was enhanced during social-communicative-action perception; FC between the manipulation-action system and the left tool-preferring lateral occipitoptemporal cortex was enhanced during manipulation-action perception. There was a significant correlation between the FC-with-action-system and the local activity strength across VOTC voxels. Our findings highlight social- and manipulation-domains of human interaction as an overarching principle of both object and action perception systems, with domain-based functional communication across systems.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Brain; Brain Mapping; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Psychomotor Performance; Visual Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 33273681
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-78276-4 -
Experimental Physiology Jul 2022What is the topic of this review? The use of proning for improving pulmonary gas exchange in critically ill patients. What advances does it highlight? Proning places the... (Review)
Review
NEW FINDINGS
What is the topic of this review? The use of proning for improving pulmonary gas exchange in critically ill patients. What advances does it highlight? Proning places the lung in its 'natural' posture, and thus optimises the ventilation-perfusion distribution, which enables lung protective ventilation and the alleviation of potentially life-threatening hypoxaemia in COVID-19 and other types of critical illness with respiratory failure.
ABSTRACT
The survival benefit of proning patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is well established and has recently been found to improve pulmonary gas exchange in patients with COVID-19-associated ARDS (CARDS). This review outlines the physiological implications of transitioning from supine to prone on alveolar ventilation-perfusion ( ) relationships during spontaneous breathing and during general anaesthesia in the healthy state, as well as during invasive mechanical ventilation in patients with ARDS and CARDS. Spontaneously breathing, awake healthy individuals maintain a small vertical (ventral-to-dorsal) ratio gradient in the supine position, which is largely neutralised in the prone position, mainly through redistribution of perfusion. In anaesthetised and mechanically ventilated healthy individuals, a vertical ratio gradient is present in both postures, but with better matching in the prone position. In ARDS and CARDS, the vertical ratio gradient in the supine position becomes larger, with intrapulmonary shunting in gravitationally dependent lung regions due to compression atelectasis of the dorsal lung. This is counteracted by proning, mainly through a more homogeneous distribution of ventilation combined with a largely unaffected high perfusion dorsally, and a consequent substantial improvement in arterial oxygenation. The data regarding proning as a therapy in patients with CARDS is still limited and whether the associated improvement in arterial oxygenation translates to a survival benefit remains unknown. Proning is nonetheless an attractive and lung protective manoeuvre with the potential benefit of improving life-threatening hypoxaemia in patients with ARDS and CARDS.
Topics: COVID-19; Humans; Hypoxia; Prone Position; Pulmonary Gas Exchange; Respiration, Artificial; Respiratory Distress Syndrome; Respiratory Insufficiency
PubMed: 34242438
DOI: 10.1113/EP089405 -
Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and... Apr 2023Bone functional adaptation rationalises the inhomogeneous morphology found in bone. By means of computed tomography osteoabsorptiometry and micro-computed tomography,...
BACKGROUND
Bone functional adaptation rationalises the inhomogeneous morphology found in bone. By means of computed tomography osteoabsorptiometry and micro-computed tomography, the mineralisation of the subchondral endplates and trabecular microstructure of vertebral bodies can be assessed to visualise the chronic loading conditions bone endures over time. In this study, we determined cancellous and compartment-specific trabecular architecture in the cervical vertebra to aid with successful integration of orthopaedic implants.
METHODS
We examined the micro-computed tomography scans of seven prospectively healthy C4 vertebrae, evaluated their microstructure parameters (bone volume fraction (BV/TV), bone surface density (BS/BV), trabecular thickness (Tb.Th), trabecular separation (Tb.Sp), trabecular number per volume (Tb.N), connectivity density (Conn.D), structure model index (SMI), and degree of anisotropy (DA), and compared the trabecular architecture in twelve predefined volumes of interest: the cranial and caudal 0-10%, 10-15%, and 25-50% in both the ventral and dorsal half. Using computed tomography osteoabsorptiometry, the subchondral bone mineralisation of the subchondral endplates of nine C4 vertebrae was also evaluated.
RESULTS
Highest mineralisation is located dorsally at the endplates. Tb.Sp and Tb.N were the only two parameters that displayed significant differences in averaged values of VOI. Nonetheless, distinct, consistent ventral-dorsal modulations were seen in matched sample ventral-dorsal comparison in the BV/TV, BS/BV, and SMI overall levels, as well as in Tb.Th in the three caudal levels. To simplify, the vertebra was split into ventral-cranial, dorsal-cranial, ventral-caudal, and dorsal-caudal equal quarters. The ventral quarters display lower BV/TV, respectively, higher BS/BV and SMI than their sample paired dorsal quarters. The ventral-cranial quarter shows the lowest BV/TV and the highest BS/BV and SMI, describing spacious cancellous bone with rod-like trabeculae. In contrast, the dorsal-caudal quarter exhibits the highest BV/TV and Tb.Th and the lowest BS/BV and SMI, illustrating thicker, denser, and more plate-like trabeculae. The dorsal-cranial and ventral-caudal quarters are comparable and represent intermediate characteristics.
CONCLUSIONS
CT-OAM and µCT demonstrate the interdependence of compact and trabecular bone in response to long-term loading conditions. Results show highest mineralisation in the dorso-caudal part of the C4 vertebra. Recommended placement of orthopaedic implants should be positioned dorsally with screws anchored in the dorsal-caudal region.
Topics: X-Ray Microtomography; Bone Density; Skull; Calcification, Physiologic; Cervical Vertebrae
PubMed: 37046305
DOI: 10.1186/s13018-023-03760-2 -
Integrative and Comparative Biology Oct 2022Fins of fishes provide many examples of structures that are beautifully designed to power and control movement in water; however, some species also use their fins for... (Review)
Review
Fins of fishes provide many examples of structures that are beautifully designed to power and control movement in water; however, some species also use their fins for substrate-associated behaviors where interactions with solid surfaces are key. Here, we examine how the pectoral fins of ray-finned fish with these multifunctional behavioral demands, in water and on solid surfaces, are structured and function. We subdivide fins used in swimming and substrate contact into two general morphological categories, regionalized vs. generalized fins. Regionalized fins have ventral rays that are free from connecting membrane or in which that membrane is reduced. Dorsally they maintain a more typical membranous fin. While all pectoral fins vary somewhat in their morphology from leading to trailing edge, generalized fins do not have the substantial membrane loss between rays that is seen in regionalized fins and the distal edge anatomy changes gradually along its margin. We add a new case study in regionalized fins with the dwarf hawkfish (Cirrhitichthys falco). Hawkfishes are most often found perching and moving on structures in their environments. During perching, the free ventral rays are in contact with the substrate and splayed. We found that unlike other fish with regionalized pectoral fins, hawkfish maintain use of the dorsal membranous region of its pectoral fin for rhythmic swimming. We found that typically hawkfish bend their ventral free rays under, toward the medial hemitrichs or hold them straight during substrate-associated postures. This appears also to be the case for the ventral free rays of other species with regionalized fins. Generalized fin use for substrate contact was reviewed in round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus). In addition, although their lobe fins are not representative of ray-finned fish anatomy, we explored fin contact on submerged substrates in the Senegal bichir (Polypterus senegalus), which has a generalized distal fin (no free fin rays or distinct membrane regions). Both groups use their pectoral fins for swimming. During substrate-based postures, unlike hawkfish, their distal rays generally bend outward toward the lateral hemitrichs and a large swath of the fin membrane can contact the surface. The alternative demands on multifunctional fins suggest specialization of the mechanosensory system. We review mechanosensation related to fin movement and surface contact. These alternative regionalized and generalized strategies for serving aquatic and substrate-based functions underwater provide opportunities to further investigate specializations, including sensory structures and systems, that accompany the evolution of substrate-based behaviors in vertebrates.
Topics: Animals; Animal Fins; Swimming; Water; Biomechanical Phenomena; Fishes; Perciformes
PubMed: 35652788
DOI: 10.1093/icb/icac061 -
Joint Diseases and Related Surgery 2023The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the length of the protruded screws from the dorsal cortex and extensor tendon damage in all compartments.
OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the length of the protruded screws from the dorsal cortex and extensor tendon damage in all compartments.
PATIENTS AND METHODS
Between May 2020 and April 2021, a total of 29 patients (13 males, 16 females; mean age: 52.3±13.0 years; range, 30 to 78 years) who were operated and followed in our clinic for AO A2 and A3 distal radius fractures were included in this prospective study. Surface ultrasound (US) imaging was made to the dorsal sides of both wrists of the operated patients at different timepoints postoperatively. The length of screws with radius dorsal cortex penetration and the presence of tendinitis were recorded.
RESULTS
In 15 of 23 patients, the presence of 29 protruding screws was accompanied by tendinitis and, in eight patients, no tendinitis was observed, despite the partial protrusion of screws. A statistically significant correlation was found between the screw protrusion and presence of tendinitis (p<0.05). The number of protruding screws and tendinitis were seen mostly in the second compartment. There was a statistically significant correlation between the protruding screw length of >1.6 mm and the presence tendinitis (p<0.05).
CONCLUSION
Dorsal cortex screw protrusions in the application of volar plate for distal radius fractures can cause tendinitis. Screw protrusions occur more frequently in the second compartment and the development of tendinitis in this compartment is associated with a screw length of >1.6 mm. Screw penetration can be easily identified with intraoperative US to prevent tendinitis and potential tendon ruptures.
Topics: Male; Female; Humans; Adult; Middle Aged; Aged; Radius Fractures; Prospective Studies; Fluoroscopy; Radius; Bone Screws; Wrist Fractures
PubMed: 36700271
DOI: 10.52312/jdrs.2023.856