Search Results (158)

Background/Objectives: Perioperative brain injury arises from interacting pathways including excitotoxicity, neuroinflammation, and endothelial dysfunction, with limited effective pharmacological neuroprotection. Magnesium sulphate has multimodal biological effects that may address these pathways, but its translational role remains unclear. We aimed to map the translational evidence landscape of perioperative magnesium sulphate and evaluate its translational evidence profile across mechanistic, indirect, and direct clinical domains with respect to potential neuroprotective signalling. Methods: A scoping review was conducted following PRISMA ScR. The literature from PubMed, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and ProQuest was screened using a Population–Concept–Context framework. Eligible studies included randomised trials, observational studies, and evidence syntheses evaluating perioperative magnesium sulphate. Evidence was categorised into direct neurological outcomes, indirect clinical outcomes, biomarker evidence, and mechanistic domains. Results: Eighteen studies were included, comprising randomised trials, observational studies, and reviews. Magnesium was consistently associated with reductions in postoperative pain and opioid consumption and improvements in recovery characteristics and shivering prevention. In contrast, direct neuroprotective outcomes such as cognitive function, cerebral oxygenation, and neurovascular events showed limited and heterogeneous evidence. Mechanistic mapping suggested effects on NMDA receptor modulation, calcium regulation, sympathetic tone, and endothelial stability. Conclusions: Perioperative magnesium sulphate demonstrates consistent indirect benefits related to analgesia and recovery but lacks robust evidence for direct neuroprotection. Its role is best conceptualised as a multimodal modulator of perioperative neural stress rather than a definitive neuroprotective agent. Future studies should adopt multidomain outcome frameworks integrating mechanistic and clinical endpoints to better define its translational impact. Full article

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is frequently accompanied by abnormal muscle tone and spasticity, which impair voluntary motor control, mobility, and quality of life. Although classically defined as velocity-dependent hyperreflexia, tone abnormalities after SCI encompass a broader spectrum, including sustained muscle activation, co-contraction, clonus, and non–velocity-dependent resistance to movement. These manifestations arise from distributed changes across spinal and supraspinal motor systems. At the segmental level, SCI induces maladaptive plasticity involving motoneurons, interneurons, sensory afferents, and muscle, including dysregulated persistent inward currents, altered inhibitory neurotransmission, afferent hyperexcitability, synaptic reorganization, and structural muscle remodeling. In parallel, supraspinal adaptations—including cortical motor map reorganization, reduced intracortical inhibition, corticospinal–reticulospinal imbalance, loss of monoaminergic modulation, and altered brainstem and cerebellar regulation—further amplify spinal circuit gain and impair inhibitory control of tone. Current pharmacologic treatments largely suppress symptoms without addressing these underlying circuit changes, while invasive neuromodulatory strategies are limited by surgical risk or state-dependent effects. This review synthesizes emerging insights into the multilevel mechanisms regulating abnormal tone after SCI and examines neuromodulatory approaches targeting spinal and supraspinal networks. Particular attention is given to transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (TcSCS), a non-invasive method capable of modulating segmental reflex circuits and descending control pathways. Advances in transcriptomic and epigenetic profiling may further enable mechanism-based therapies and biomarker-guided strategies for treating spasticity. Full article

Observation of welding features is important for GMAW training and instruction because the welding arc, molten pool, filler wire, and groove can be difficult to distinguish during welding. In this study, a compact, low-cost, and practical visualization system was developed to support gas metal arc welding (GMAW) skill training from both the welder’s and instructor’s perspectives. The system consists of a welder-side unit and an instructor-side unit and uses a commercial camera, optical filters, a wide-angle lens, and a compact computer. Welding images were acquired under actual GMAW conditions, and the effects of optical filter selection, exposure time, tone mapping, and trimming methods were investigated. A 600 nm long-pass filter and an exposure time of 20,000 μs provided a suitable balance between arc-light suppression, brightness stability, and image clarity. Gamma correction improved the visibility of key regions, including the molten pool, arc, torch, groove, and wire. In addition, low-pass-filtered centroid tracking enabled stable trimming of the weld region from wide-angle images. The developed system achieved real-time display and recording of standardized welding images, demonstrating its potential to support GMAW training through improved image visibility, real-time monitoring, and standardized image recording, while also providing visual data for post-weld review and future skill-assessment applications. Full article

Functional brain networks in schizophrenia (SZ) are often characterized by covariance-based measures, yet covariance matrices live on a curved geometric structure rather than in ordinary Euclidean space, complicating noise-robust inference from scalp EEG. We develop a Riemannian Geometry-based Adaptive Nonlinear Coupling Analysis (RGA-NCA) framework that integrates the affine-invariant Riemannian metric (AIRM), tangent space mapping (TSM), and an anatomically adaptive artifact rejection (AAAR) strategy accounting for regional signal-to-noise heterogeneity. The framework is grounded in the observation that Euclidean summaries of symmetric positive definite matrices are sensitive to noise-driven volume inflation, whereas geodesic distances on the manifold emphasize shape deformation. RGA-NCA was evaluated on four benchmark dynamical systems, a supplementary multichannel EEG-like sample covariance simulation, and a public button-tone SZ/HC EEG dataset associated with the auditory feedback paradigm described by Ford et al. (81 subjects; 49 SZ, 32 healthy controls). Compared with Euclidean and linear baselines, RGA-NCA showed lower sensitivity to noise-driven distance distortion and yielded clearer group-level contrasts in the tested ROI analyses; all four pre-specified frontotemporal and parietal channel pairs remained significant after Benjamini–Hochberg FDR correction. The resulting patterns are consistent with reduced long-range connectivity together with localized hyper-synchronization-like effects in SZ. Quantitatively, the Riemannian structural sensitivity index $(\mathrm{sim}=\exp (-d^2/4))$ remained high across all tested SNR levels (−20 to +10 dB; 50 Monte Carlo trials per level; range 0.936–0.964), with only a 0.026 endpoint change between +10 and −20 dB, whereas the Euclidean metric fell from 0.922 at +10 dB to 0.000 at −20 dB. These findings support Riemannian modeling as a candidate strategy for noisy covariance-based neural data, pending validation in larger independent cohorts. Full article

High dynamic range (HDR) imaging offers an enhanced visual experience by capturing a wider range of real-world luminance levels in digital images. Driven by the increasing demand for high-quality visuals, HDR monitor technology has seen significant advancements. As such monitors become commonplace in both consumer and professional settings, efficient methods are needed for both converting standard dynamic range (SDR) content to HDR—known as reverse tone mapping—and optimizing natural HDR lighting content for display on HDR monitors. A reverse tone mapping procedure aims to produce natural lighting levels, but even on high-end HDR monitors, such images still require adjustment to avoid hard clipping. This paper presents a solution that jointly does both steps: (1) reverse tone mapping to a display-aware HDR representation, and (2) direct generation of an image tailored for a chosen monitor brightness value. We propose a novel neural network architecture conditioned on the target peak brightness via a lightweight multi-layer perceptron (MLP) module injected at the bottleneck, which predicts a bracketed stack of LDR exposures serving as the method’s HDR representation. In this manner, the ill-posed tone mapping problem is guided by auxiliary information about display characteristics, improving visual quality. Experiments throughout the full consumer HDR range (100–4000 nits) show consistent improvements over the display-agnostic baseline in peak luminance utilization, local contrast, color and perceptual quality. Full article

We demonstrate a reconfigurable microwave frequency measurement (MFM) scheme based on the period-one (P1) dynamics of an optically injected semiconductor laser. Unlike conventional architectures relying on electrical frequency-sweeping, our approach utilizes the P1 oscillation to generate a wideband linear optical chirp. A spectral gating mechanism is introduced, where an optical bandpass filter creates a negative temporal marker by rejecting free-running component of distributed feedback laser (DFB), thereby eliminating the need for external synchronization or pilot tones. The measurement range is flexibly tunable by adjusting the injection parameters, enabling a measurement range from 10 to 48 GHz. Experimental results demonstrate a frequency resolution of 50 MHz with chirp rate of 1 GHz/μs and a root-mean-square (RMS) error below 15 MHz, confirming the validity of this all-optical, self-referenced frequency-to-time mapping technique. Full article

Maropitant has been proposed as an adjunct for pain relief in dogs undergoing surgeries like ovariohysterectomy (OVH), but its effectiveness has not yet been definitively proven. This study aimed to assess the intraoperative analgesic effect of intravenously administered maropitant citrate at a constant rate infusion through monitoring parasympathetic tone activity in female dogs undergoing OVH. Thirty healthy females of various breeds, with an average age of 3.8 ± 2.7 years, an average weight of 16.75 ± 10.68 kg, were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. The group receiving maropitant (G_Maro, n = 15) was given a 1 mg kg⁻¹ maropitant bolus intravenously (IV), followed by a continuous infusion of 100 mcg kg⁻¹ min⁻¹. The lidocaine group (G_Lido, n = 15) received a 2 mg/kg lidocaine IV bolus, with subsequent infusion at 50 mcg kg⁻¹ min⁻¹. Cardiorespiratory variables and the PTA index were evaluated at 11 anesthetic time points. Overall, cardiovascular variables such as Heart Rate (HR) and systolic arterial pressure (SAP) significantly decreased during anesthesia induction in the G_Maro (p = 0.0001; p = 0.01, respectively) and in G_Lido (p = 0.01). Differences between groups during induction were observed in HR (p = 0.03), SAP (p = 0.04), and mean arterial pressure (MAP) (p = 0.03). MAP showed significant changes from baseline at the start of surgery and during clamping in both G_Maro (p = 0.03) and G_Lido (p = 0.003). Regarding ventilatory variables—pulse oximetry (SpO₂), respiratory rate (RR), inspired oxygen fraction (FiO₂), end-tidal CO₂ (EtCO₂)—no group differences were found, but RR (G_Maro; p = 0.001, G_Lido; p = 0.0001) and SpO₂ (G_Maro; p = 0.004, G_Lido; p = 0.04) differed significantly from baseline due to the controlled clinical setting. During anesthesia maintenance, end-tidal isoflurane (ET_Iso) increased significantly in the G_Lido (p = 0.009), with no difference between groups (p = 0.94). Finally, only the PTA energy variable showed a significant decrease in the G_Maro (p = 0.0006), and a significant difference in this parameter was observed during right ovarian pedicle manipulation between groups (p = 0.02). In conclusion, continuous intravenous infusion of maropitant citrate at 100 mcg kg⁻¹ h⁻¹ effectively reduced the sympathetic response related to nociception, similar to lidocaine, in healthy female dogs undergoing OVH. Full article

Background: Nocebo effects are described as adverse symptoms arising from negative expectations rather than direct physiological harm, and are increasingly recognised across healthcare. While traditionally examined within pharmacological trials, emerging literature suggests that nocebo effects are shaped by broader interactional, situational, and communicative processes. In dentistry and paediatric care, where behaviour support and reassurance are central to practice, these mechanisms remain under-synthesised. Objectives: This scoping review aimed to map how nocebo effects are conceptualised across healthcare literature, with particular attention to the role of communication, reassurance, and behaviour support, and to explore how these mechanisms are discussed in paediatric, procedural, and dental contexts. Methods: An interpretive scoping review was conducted in line with JBI guidance and PRISMA-ScR reporting standards. Multidisciplinary literature spanning experimental, clinical, ethical, and applied domains was systematically identified and charted. Studies were grouped using a conceptual framework encompassing expectancy, learning, communication-mediated, ethical, and contextual mechanisms, allowing overlap between categories. Results: A large and heterogeneous body of literature was identified, with most studies conceptualising nocebo effects through overlapping mechanisms rather than discrete pathways. Expectancy and learning processes formed a foundational substrate across contexts, while communication, including framing, tone, reassurance, and checking-in, emerged as an active mechanism shaping symptom perception and vigilance. Ethical discussions highlighted tensions between transparency and potential harm, particularly in consent and risk communication. Paediatric and procedural settings, including dental sedation, were comparatively underrepresented despite features likely to amplify nocebo effects, such as reduced agency and heightened attentional focus. Conclusions: Nocebo effects are best understood as interactional phenomena that emerge within everyday clinical encounters. This review highlights the need to critically examine behaviour support practices, including reassurance, that are typically assumed to be benign. Greater conceptual clarity and reflexivity in communication may support future research and training aimed at minimising unintended distress within dental and paediatric care. These findings suggest that routine communication practices, including reassurance and expectation-setting, should be understood as active components of care that can influence patient experience, rather than as neutral or purely supportive interactions. Full article

The Effective Mode Approximation (EMA) is a verification-oriented framework for characterizing collective Hamiltonian dynamics in large continuous-variable (CV) quantum systems from experimentally accessible collective measurements. Rather than reconstructing a full mode-resolved Hamiltonian, EMA maps the observed dynamics onto a canonically normalized collective mode and tests whether summed quadrature trajectories are consistent with an effective harmonic description. We validate EMA using time-resolved homodyne sampling in Gaussian simulations of ring-coupled multi-qu-mode optical systems with $N=8,16,32,$ and 64 modes. One-tone and two-tone sinusoidal models, selected using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), recover a stable dominant collective frequency across system size and produce residuals that remain centred near zero. The results show that EMA can verify dominant collective behaviour with a fixed number of effective parameters even when full microscopic reconstruction is impractical. EMA is therefore best understood not as a full-state ansatz, but as a low-overhead tool for validating collective dynamics under realistic measurement constraints in scalable CV hardware. Full article

Ambient temperature is a continuous environmental input that affects energy homeostasis through integrated physiological programs. In mammals, thermal cues detected by cutaneous and visceral sensors are conveyed through spinal, vagal, and sympathetic pathways. They are complemented by circulating mediators from the gut, liver, and adipose tissue. These signals converge on brainstem–hypothalamic networks, including the preoptic area and arcuate nucleus, to coordinate feeding behavior, thermogenesis, vasomotor tone, and endocrine outputs. Recent circuit-mapping and single-cell approaches have refined the cellular logic governing the distinct architectures of cold- and heat-defense programs. This review synthesizes these advances to illustrate how a plastic effector network maintains systemic energy homeostasis. Finally, we highlight the translational implications of these thermosensory mechanisms for treating obesity and type 2 diabetes. Full article

This paper presents a reproducible system innovation for processing Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) mammography images based on pixel-monotonic dynamic range management and engineering-verifiable intensity transformations. Standard DICOM conversion schemes to 8-bit representation often result in irreversible luminance-range compression, locality-dependent contrast distortions, and reduced robustness of deep learning models. The proposed framework preserves the physical consistency of the Modality LUT and photometric polarity, performs breast-aware robust Winsor normalization, and applies strictly monotonic global tone mapping while preserving the 16-bit depth of the training data. System validation was performed using architecture-independent metrics. Compared to standard processing, the median value of normalized mutual information increased from 0.878 to 0.892, the effective number of bits increased from 7.88 to 10.11 (+2.25), the representation entropy increased by 1.42 bits, and the clipping rate was reduced to almost zero. Experiments with the Faster R-CNN detector showed stable or improved calcification localization at Intersection over Union (IoU) ≥ 0.5 under controlled augmentation conditions. The results confirm that pixel-monotonic dynamic range control provides a reproducible, engineering-verifiable basis for AI-based mammography analysis within the evaluated dataset and experimental setting. Full article

Background: Neurodegenerative diseases are a major health problem, and the neuropsychiatric symptoms seen in these diseases adversely impact the lives of patients, families, and caregivers. Inappropriate aggressive behavior is a highly disruptive symptom and a leading cause of institutionalization. There are no approved drugs specifically for the treatment of problematic aggression, and the off-label use of antipsychotics has limited benefit with significant side effects and safety risks. This review discusses dysregulated arginine vasopressin (AVP) signaling in fear–threat circuitry as a key driver of inappropriate aggression. Because the AVP 1a receptor (V1aR) is the dominant subtype in the CNS, the selective antagonism of this receptor represents a well-rationalized target for the treatment of aggression across neurodegenerative, psychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders. Objectives: Our goal was to summarize the basis for using V1aR antagonists as a treatment for irritability and aggressive behavior. We describe its discovery, biosynthesis, receptor pharmacology, and CNS distribution, emphasizing V1aR localization in central fear–threat circuits. Translational evidence from animal studies, pharmacological neuroimaging, and lesion network mapping is presented. These data support the suggestion that heightened vasopressinergic tone biases socioemotional information processing toward negative valence, increasing threat sensitivity and the likelihood of inappropriate aggressive responses. Emerging clinical data support this framework. Highly selective, CNS-penetrant V1aR antagonists reduced aggressive behavior and had an excellent safety profile in phase 2 studies in Huntington’s disease and intermittent explosive disorder, with efficacy signals across caregiver-reported, clinician-rated, and incident-based measures. Furthermore, pharmacological neuroimaging showed that V1aR antagonism normalizes AVP-induced alterations in activity within fear–threat circuitry. Conclusions and Future Directions: Preclinical, translational, and clinical findings to date support V1aR antagonism as a promising strategy for treating pathological aggression across disorders. Additional experimental medicine studies and clinical trials are needed to conclusively establish efficacy in various disease populations, and we note the need for improved trial designs and analytical methods as part of the development process. Full article

Background/Objectives: The objective of this scoping review was to map and critically describe emerging speech-in-noise assessment tools developed over the last decade for the evaluation of hearing loss beyond conventional audiological measures. Methods: This review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. A comprehensive literature search was performed in the PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Embase databases. A comprehensive review of studies describing novel or emerging SIN-based assessment tools was conducted, with a particular emphasis on those including adult participants with normal hearing and hearing loss. Results: Nine studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. The identified tools cover a range of methodological innovations, including advanced digits-in-noise paradigms, antiphasic and binaural presentation modes, optimized adaptive procedures, and digital or automated testing platforms. Several studies also incorporated artificial intelligence-based approaches, such as machine learning, text-to-speech, and automatic speech recognition, to enhance test development, administration, and hearing loss classification. Across all studies, SIN measures demonstrated the ability to reliably differentiate between normal hearing listeners and individuals with hearing loss and to provide complementary information beyond pure-tone audiometry. Conclusions: Emerging speech-in-noise tools show considerable potential to improve the functional assessment of hearing loss and to support more sensitive, accessible, and scalable approaches for hearing evaluation. Further research is required to assess their clinical integration and long-term impact on hearing screening and diagnostic pathways. Full article

Cannabinoid receptors occupy strategic control nodes within motor circuitry, making them potential targets for modulating different motor manifestations. They are positioned both within basal ganglia circuits that regulate movement and within spinal circuits that control skeletal muscle tone. Consequently, cannabinoids have been studied across diverse motor disorders, most notably in movement disorders and tone disorders, particularly those resulting in spasticity. Because motor control spans multiple anatomically and functionally distinct levels, relating cannabinoid signaling to effects on motor function is not straightforward. Limited understanding of cannabinoid receptor distribution has led to cannabinoids being tested even in disorders where receptor localization would predict little or no benefit. Mapping receptor distribution within individual motor circuits and integrating them with their pharmacological effects can help anticipate how cannabinoid signaling shapes motor output. Combined with characteristic motor manifestations, one can identify motor disorders in which cannabinoids may have therapeutic value. In this review, we integrate existing evidence to place cannabinoid receptors within key motor pathways, ranging from basal ganglia circuits controlling movement to peripheral mechanisms governing muscle tone. We consider both cannabinoid 1 receptor (CB₁R) and cannabinoid 2 receptor (CB₂R), with CB₂R gaining attention only recently for its potential relevance within the central nervous system. Building on this framework, we infer how cannabinoids acting at these sites may modulate motor control, and consequently, influence motor manifestations across major motor disorders. Finally, we examine how these distribution-based expectations align with available clinical observations. Full article

This study examines whether Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) exhibit challenges or advantages in learning novel words with overt trochaic versus iambic patterns. Mandarin full-tone words lack salient stress cues, whereas neutral-tone words exhibit a clear trochaic pattern. Given the unique prosody of Mandarin and CI users’ difficulty in acquiring the neutral tone, we predicted distinct effects of lexical stress on word production and recognition. Fifteen Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with CIs and 15 age-matched children with normal hearing (NH) learned 16 pairs of stress-contrasted novel words. A referent-naming task assessed stress production through pattern proportion, accuracy, and acoustic analysis, while a referent-matching task evaluated stress identification and word-referent mapping accuracy. In the naming task, children with CIs showed a preference for iambic words in both frequency and accuracy. They also produced longer second syllables in trochaic words than their NH peers. In the matching task, the CI group performed worse overall, although neither group showed a stress-specific effect. These results indicate that CI users struggle with syllable duration control in trochees. This difficulty reflects both an inability to shorten the unstressed syllable and the potential adoption of a final-syllable lengthening strategy linked to higher prosodic domains. The insensitivity to stress contrast in recognition may stem from the generally weak word-level stress cues in Mandarin. Full article