Patient-specific 3D reconstruction models for sacral tumor resection: illustrative cases.

Background: The surgical methods used to resect sacral tumors are extensive and require maneuvering through complex anatomical systems such as the pelvic organs and sacral nerve roots. These procedures may result in complications and adverse patient outcomes. The technology integrating 3D reconstruction models in the field of spine surgery is rapidly evolving, and these challenging cases present a unique opportunity to leverage this technology's capability for enhanced patient outcomes.

From conference to career: Tracing medical pathways of Stanford university's minority medical alliance (SUMMA) premedical conference alumni.

Despite the growing diversity of the U.S. population, racial and ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in healthcare professions, perpetuating health disparities.

Association Between Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs Use and Surgical Outcomes Following Posterior Lumbar Fusion: A Medical Claims Database Analysis.

Background: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are commonly prescribed for postoperative pain management after spinal fusion surgeries, but their potential impact on fusion outcomes and wound healing remains controversial.

Objective: To use a national database and consistent selection criteria to compare the postoperative outcomes of patients who first received NSAIDs ≤ 72 hours, 72 hours to 90 days, and 90 days to 1 year after posterior lumbar fusion (PLF) surgery, to those who never received NSAIDs within the first year of surgery.

Methods: Using the Merative Marketscan Research Databases, we analyzed PLF patients aged 18 to 90 years who underwent either single- and multilevel fusions.

Determining critical monitoring periods for accurate wearable step counts in patients with degenerative spine disorders.

Longitudinal physical activity monitoring is a novel and promising objective outcome measure for patients with degenerative spine disorder (DSD) that currently lacks established standards for data collection and interpretation. Here, we monitored 100 patients with DSD with the Apple Watch to establish the optimal duration and pattern of step count monitoring needed to estimate their weekly physical activity before their elective surgery. Participants were predominantly female (65.

Analyzing Large Language Models' Responses to Common Lumbar Spine Fusion Surgery Questions: A Comparison Between ChatGPT and Bard.

Objective: In the digital age, patients turn to online sources for lumbar spine fusion information, necessitating a careful study of large language models (LLMs) like chat generative pre-trained transformer (ChatGPT) for patient education.

Methods: Our study aims to assess the response quality of Open AI (artificial intelligence)'s ChatGPT 3.5 and Google's Bard to patient questions on lumbar spine fusion surgery.

Standardizing Continuous Physical Activity Monitoring in Patients with Cervical Spondylosis.

Study Design/setting: Prospective cohort study.

Objective: To use a commercial wearable device to measure real-life, continuous physical activity in patients with CS and to establish age-adjusted and sex-adjusted standardized scores.

Summary Of Background Data: Patients with cervical spondylosis (CS) often present with pain or neurologic deficits that result in functional limitations and inactivity.

Excitatory and inhibitory neural dynamics jointly tune motion detection.

Neurons integrate excitatory and inhibitory signals to produce their outputs, but the role of input timing in this integration remains poorly understood. Motion detection is a paradigmatic example of this integration, since theories of motion detection rely on different delays in visual signals. These delays allow circuits to compare scenes at different times to calculate the direction and speed of motion.

Transport rate of EAAT2 is regulated by amino acid located at the interface between the scaffolding and substrate transport domains.

Excitatory Amino Acid Transporters (EAATs) are plasma membrane proteins responsible for maintenance of low extracellular concentrations of glutamate in the CNS. Dysfunction in their activity is implicated in various neurological disorders. Glutamate transport by EAATs occurs through the movement of the central transport domain relative to the scaffold domain in the EAAT membrane protein.

Spatiotemporally precise optogenetic activation of sensory neurons in freely walking .

Previous work has characterized how walking coordinate the movements of individual limbs (DeAngelis et al., 2019). To understand the circuit basis of this coordination, one must characterize how sensory feedback from each limb affects walking behavior.

Heterogeneous Temporal Contrast Adaptation in Drosophila Direction-Selective Circuits.

In visual systems, neurons adapt both to the mean light level and to the range of light levels, or the contrast. Contrast adaptation has been studied extensively, but it remains unclear how it is distributed among neurons in connected circuits, and how early adaptation affects subsequent computations. Here, we investigated temporal contrast adaptation in neurons across Drosophila's visual motion circuitry.

Peptide-Mediated Neurotransmission Takes Center Stage.

Today, we understand peptide transmitters to be signaling molecules that modulate neural activity. However, in 1982 little was known about neuropeptides and their role in neural communication. The influential 1982 paper by Jan and Jan reported definitive evidence that a presynaptically released neuropeptide evokes postsynaptic responses in an identified cholinergic synapse, thereby fueling a new era in neuroscience.

Glial and Neuronal Glutamate Transporters Differ in the Na Requirements for Activation of the Substrate-Independent Anion Conductance.

Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) are secondary active transporters of L-glutamate and L- or D-aspartate. These carriers also mediate a thermodynamically uncoupled anion conductance that is gated by Na and substrate binding. The activation of the anion channel by binding of Na alone, however, has only been demonstrated for mammalian EAAC1 (EAAT3) and EAAT4.

Substrate transport and anion permeation proceed through distinct pathways in glutamate transporters.

Advances in structure-function analyses and computational biology have enabled a deeper understanding of how excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) mediate chloride permeation and substrate transport. However, the mechanism of structural coupling between these functions remains to be established. Using a combination of molecular modeling, substituted cysteine accessibility, electrophysiology and glutamate uptake assays, we identified a chloride-channeling conformer, S, transiently accessible as EAAT1 reconfigures from substrate/ion-loaded into a substrate-releasing conformer.