Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation of the Hand: A Systematic Review of Eligibility Criteria.

BACKGROUND: Hand transplantation (HT) has emerged as an intervention of last resort for those who endured amputation or irreparable loss of upper extremity function. However, because of the considerable effort required for allograft management and the risks of lifelong immunosuppression, patient eligibility is critical to treatment success. Thus, the objective of this article is to investigate the reported eligibility criteria of HT centers globally. METHODS: A systematic review of the HT literature was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines, using PubMed, Cochrane, Ovid/Medline, and Scopus. Program Web sites and clinicaltrials.gov entries were included where available. RESULTS: A total of 354 articles were reviewed, 101 of which met inclusion criteria. Furthermore, 10 patient-facing Web sites and 11 clinical trials were included. The most reported criteria related to the capacity to manage the allograft posttransplantation, including access to follow-up, insurance coverage, psychological stability, and history of medical compliance. Other factors related to the impact of immunosuppression, such as active pregnancy and patient immune status, were less emphasized. CONCLUSIONS: Because of the novelty of the field, eligibility criteria continue to evolve. While there is consensus on certain eligibility factors, other criteria diverge between programs, and very few factors were considered absolute contraindications. As the popularity of the field continues to grow, we encourage the development of consensus evidence-based eligibility criteria.

Protocol for in vivo imaging and analysis of brainstem neuronal activity in the dorsal raphe nucleus of freely behaving mice.

In vivo brainstem imaging with miniature microscopy has been challenging due to surgical difficulty, high motion, and correlated activity between neurons. Here, we present a protocol for brainstem imaging in freely moving mice using the dorsal raphe nucleus as an example. We describe surgical procedures to inject a virus encoding GCaMP6m and securely implant a GRIN lens in the brainstem. We then detail motion correction and cell segmentation from the data to parse single-cell activity from correlated networks. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Paquelet et al. (2022).1.

Single-cell activity and network properties of dorsal raphe nucleus serotonin neurons during emotionally salient behaviors.

The serotonin system modulates a wide variety of emotional behaviors and states, including reward processing, anxiety, and social interaction. To reveal the underlying patterns of neural activity, we visualized serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN5-HT) of mice using miniaturized microscopy during diverse emotional behaviors. We discovered ensembles of cells with highly correlated activity and found that DRN5-HT neurons are preferentially recruited by emotionally salient stimuli as opposed to neutral stimuli. Individual DRN5-HT neurons responded to diverse combinations of salient stimuli, with some preference for valence and sensory modality. Anatomically defined subpopulations projecting to either a reward-related structure (the ventral tegmental area) or an anxiety-related structure (the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis) contained all response types but were enriched in reward- and anxiety-responsive cells, respectively. Our results suggest that the DRN serotonin system responds to emotional salience using ensembles with mixed selectivity and biases in downstream connectivity.