Predicting inpatient rehabilitation length of stay for adults with traumatic spinal cord injury.

Introduction: Most post-injury traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) care occurs in the inpatient rehabilitation setting. The inpatient rehabilitation length of stay (R-LOS) has been shown to be a significant predictor of motor function restoration in persons with TSCI. Due to the complexity, and heterogeneity of individuals with TSCI, the R-LOS is challenging to predict at admission.

Descriptive analysis and evaluation of Health Link referrals to the emergency department before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: In Alberta, Health Link (HL) provides a 24-h, nurse-staffed, phone resource to the public for health-care advice. HL directs callers to either seek care in the emergency department (ED), with a primary care provider or provide self-care at home. This work aims to describe HL ED referrals prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Epidemiology and healthcare utilization of First Nations peoples living with spinal cord injury in Alberta: an observational study to explore health inequities.

Study Design: Retrospective observational cohort study.

Objectives: Estimate spinal cord injury (SCI) prevalence in First Nations and non-First Nations populations and compare healthcare utilization as an indirect marker of health inequities.

Setting: Alberta, Canada.

Variation in Testing for and Incidence of Celiac Autoimmunity in Canada: A Population-Based Study.

Background & Aims: The incidence of biopsy-confirmed celiac disease has increased. However, few studies have explored the incidence of celiac autoimmunity based on positive serology results.

Methods: A population-based cohort study assessed testing of tissue transglutaminase antibodies (tTG-IgA) in Alberta from 2012 to 2020.

Symptoms associated with a positive result for a swab for SARS-CoV-2 infection among children in Alberta.

Background: Research involving children with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has primarily focused on those presenting to emergency departments. We aimed to determine the symptoms most commonly associated with a positive result for a SARS-CoV-2 swab among community-based children.

Methods: We conducted an observational study among children tested and followed for SARS-CoV-2 infection using nasal, nasopharyngeal, throat or other (e.

Assessment of Postural Stability During an Upper Extremity Rapid, Bimanual Motor Task After Sport-Related Concussion.

Context: Sport-related concussion (SRC) often presents with multidimensional and subtle neurologic deficits that are difficult to detect with standard clinical tests. New assessment approaches that efficiently quantify deficits across multiple neurologic domains are needed.

Objective: To quantify impairments in postural movements during an assessment of rapid, bimanual motor ability in athletes within 10 days of experiencing an SRC and evaluate relationships between impairments in upper extremity and postural performance.

Robotic Assessment of Motor, Sensory, and Cognitive Function in Acute Sport-Related Concussion and Recovery.

There is a need for better tools to objectively, reliably, and precisely assess neurological function after sport-related concussion (SRC). The aim of this study was to use a robotic device (Kinesiological Instrument for Normal and Altered Reaching Movements; KINARM) to quantify neurological impairments in athletes acutely and when clinically asymptomatic post-SRC. Robotic assessments included five KINARM standard tasks that evaluate aspects of motor, sensory, and cognitive function.

Test-retest reliability of the KINARM end-point robot for assessment of sensory, motor and neurocognitive function in young adult athletes.

Background: Current assessment tools for sport-related concussion are limited by a reliance on subjective interpretation and patient symptom reporting. Robotic assessments may provide more objective and precise measures of neurological function than traditional clinical tests.

Objective: To determine the reliability of assessments of sensory, motor and cognitive function conducted with the KINARM end-point robotic device in young adult elite athletes.

Stimulating forebrain communications: Slow sinusoidal electric fields over frontal cortices dynamically modulate hippocampal activity and cortico-hippocampal interplay during slow-wave states.

Slow-wave states are characterized by the most global physiological phenomenon in the mammalian brain, the large-amplitude slow oscillation (SO; ~1Hz) composed of alternating states of activity (ON/UP states) and silence (OFF/DOWN states) at the network and single cell levels. The SO is cortically generated and appears as a traveling wave that can propagate across the cortical surface and can invade the hippocampus. This cortical rhythm is thought to be imperative for sleep-dependent memory consolidation, potentially through increased interactions with the hippocampus.

BOSC: a better oscillation detection method, extracts both sustained and transient rhythms from rat hippocampal recordings.

Neuronal population oscillations at a variety of frequencies can be readily seen in electroencephalographic (EEG) as well as local field potential recordings in many different species. Although these brain rhythms have been studied for many years, the methods for identifying discrete oscillatory epochs are still widely variable across studies. The "better oscillation detection" (BOSC) method applies standardized criteria to detect runs of "true" oscillatory activity and rejects transient events that do not reflect actual rhythms.

A better oscillation detection method robustly extracts EEG rhythms across brain state changes: the human alpha rhythm as a test case.

Oscillatory activity is a principal mode of operation in the brain. Despite an intense resurgence of interest in the mechanisms and functions of brain rhythms, methods for the detection and analysis of oscillatory activity in neurophysiological recordings are still highly variable across studies. We recently proposed a method for detecting oscillatory activity from time series data, which we call the BOSC (Better OSCillation detection) method.

Heat synch: inter- and independence of body-temperature fluctuations and brain-state alternations in urethane-anesthetized rats.

During sleep, warm-blooded animals exhibit cyclic alternations between rapid-eye-movement (REM) and nonrapid-eye-movement (non-REM) states, characterized by distinct patterns of brain activity apparent in electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings coupled with corresponding changes in physiological measures, including body temperature. Recently we have shown that urethane-anesthetized rats display cyclic alternations between an activated state and a deactivated state that are highly similar in both EEG and physiological characteristics to REM and non-REM sleep states, respectively. Here, using intracranial local field potential recordings from urethane-anesthetized rats, we show that brain-state alternations were correlated to core temperature fluctuations induced using a feedback-controlled heating system.