Do Implant Retained Prostheses Improve the Quality of Life of Patients with Extraoral Maxillofacial Defects - A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: There is limited evidence available regarding patient satisfaction and quality of life assessment in patients with extraoral maxillofacial prostheses. OBJECTIVES: This systematic review aims to understand the impact of extraoral implant retained prosthesis in improving the quality of life in patients with extraoral maxillofacial defects/abnormalities. METHODS: A comprehensive search was performed of nine electronic databases up to August 2022, which yielded three articles that satisfied the inclusion criteria. The study characteristics and findings were extracted, and the included studies were assessed for quality. RESULTS: Three cohort studies were selected. Despite the lack of uniformity in the quality of life instruments, there was a general trend in improvement in the quality of life for patients with implant retained extraoral prostheses. The studies were also deemed to be of high quality on assessment. CONCLUSION: Given the limitations of this systematic review, there exists limited evidence indicating that implant prostheses may enhance the quality of life for individuals with extraoral maxillofacial defects or abnormalities.

Ultrasound Examination Without Axial Imaging is Sufficient for Preoperative Planning in Transcarotid Artery Revascularization (TCAR).

BACKGROUND: Duplex ultrasound is frequently used to determine the degree of carotid stenosis. However, axial imaging is typically obtained for operative planning for transcarotid artery revascularization (TCAR). We examined if ultrasound alone is sufficient before TCAR. METHODS: Data from the Vascular Quality Initiative TCAR Surveillance Project registry between 2016 and 2021 was obtained. Patients were divided into 2 groups-those with preoperative ultrasound-alone (US) and those with additional axial imaging (AX). Perioperative outcomes were compared utilizing univariate Chi-square, independent t-test, multivariate logistic regression, and Kaplan-Meier analysis. RESULTS: There were 3,418 patients identified: 682 in the US group and 2,736 in the AX group. More preoperative hypertension was reported in US (16.1% vs. 10.2%, P < 0.001) while cardiovascular disease (23% vs. 28.9%, P = 0.006) and prior ipsilateral stroke (22% vs. 32.7%, P = 0.002) were more prevalent in AX. More patients had history of contralateral carotid endarterectomy (13.6% vs. 16.7%, P = 0.035) or either ipsilateral (2.6% vs. 1.2%, P = 0.002) or contralateral (7.9% vs. 4.9%, P = 0.008) carotid artery stenting in the US group. Lower preoperative creatinine was reported in the US cohort (1.09 ± 0.01 vs. 1.18 ± 0.02, P < 0.001) while more were symptomatic in AX (28.2% vs. 36.2%, P < 0.001). There were no significant differences between lesion characteristics or operative decision making. A slightly higher total procedure time was seen in AX (73.7 ± 0.6 vs. 68.6 ± 1.3 min, P = 0.017). No differences were seen in perioperative transient ischemic attack/stroke or other immediate complications. At 2-year follow-up, both groups reported no significant differences in stroke-free survival (P = 0.750) and independent functional status remained near-identical (97.3% vs. 97.4%, P = 0.921). Kaplan-Meier analysis yielded no significant difference between mortality at 2 years (P = 0.563). Bivariate logistic regression modeling did reveal a statistically significant increase in likelihood of long-term ipsilateral stroke (odds ratio 1.77, P = 0.015) and non stroke-related complication in the postoperative period (odds ratio 4.81, P = 0.005). However, only a statistically significant relationship persisted in non-stroke complication when the model was controlled for between-group differences. CONCLUSIONS: No significant differences in postoperative or long-term complications were noted with additional AX in preoperative TCAR planning. Thus, duplex ultrasound offers a safe and effective alternative for those with contraindication or axial imaging.

Most treatments to control freshwater algal blooms are not effective: Meta-analysis of field experiments.

Harmful algal blooms negatively impact freshwater, estuarine, and marine systems worldwide, including those used for drinking water, recreation, and aquaculture, through the production of toxic and nontoxic secondary metabolites as well as hypoxic events that occur when algal blooms degrade. Consequently, water resource managers often utilize chemical, bacterial, physical, and/or plant-based treatments to control algal blooms and improve water quality. However, awareness of available treatments may be limited, and there is ambiguity among the effects of algal bloom treatments across studies. Such variation within the literature and lack of knowledge of other tested treatments leave uncertainty for water resource managers when deciding what treatments are best to control algal blooms and improve water quality. Our primary objective was to synthesize data from 39 published and unpublished studies that used one of 28 chemical, bacterial, physical, and/or plant-based treatments in field experiments on various water quality measurements, including phytoplankton pigments and cell density, cyanobacterial toxins (microcystin), and common off-flavors (i.e., taste and odor compounds; geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol). We hypothesized that treatments would improve water quality. Across all studies and treatment types (227 effect sizes), water quality improvements were observed when measured at the time of greatest decline following treatment or at the end of the experiment. However, these findings were primarily mediated by only four chemicals, namely copper sulfate, hydrogen peroxide, peracetic acid, and simazine. None of the bacterial, physical, or plant-based treatments were shown to significantly improve water quality by themselves. Results from this synthesis quantitatively showed that most treatments fail to improve water quality in the field and highlight the need for more research on existing and alternative treatments.

MHD micro polar fluid flow over a stretching surface with melting and slip effect.

Objective of the present analysis is to represent the phenomenon of Heat-mass transfer on MHD micro polar fluids caused by permeable and continuously stretching sheet along with slip impacts fostered in a porous medium. Consequently, the equation of energy includes the term of non-uniform heat source/sink. The equation regarding species concentration in cooperates the terms indicating order of chemical reaction to characterize the chemically reactive species. The application software MATLAB with governing syntax of bvp4c technique are employed to reduce equations of momentum, micro-rations, heat, and concentration into suitable required simplifications to derive necessary arithmetic manipulations of available non-linear equations. Various dimensionless parameters are portrayed in the available graphs with essential consequences. Analysis discovered that micro-polar fluid improves velocity and temperature profile while it suppresses micro-rations profile also magnetic parameter ([Formula: see text]) and porosity parameter ([Formula: see text]) reduces the momentum boundary layer thickness. The acquired deductions verify remarkable correspondence with already reported in an open literature.

Aqueous deficiency dry eye in post conjunctivitis cicatrization - Effect of deep thermal punctal cautery.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of deep thermal punctal cautery in eyes with post-conjunctivitis cicatrization. Methods: This retrospective study consisted of patients who underwent deep thermal punctal cautery for post-conjunctivitis dry eye (PCDE). The diagnosis was based on a history suggestive of viral conjunctivitis in past followed by the onset of present clinical features of aqueous deficiency dry eye (ATD). All patients underwent a rheumatological evaluation to rule out underlying systemic collagen vascular disease as a cause for dry eye. The extent of cicatricial changes was noted. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), Schirmer's test, and fluorescein staining score (FSS; total score of 9) were analyzed pre- and post-cautery. Results: Out of 65 patients (117 eyes), 42 were males. The mean age at presentation was 25.769 ± 12.03 years. Thirteen patients presented with unilateral dry eye. Pre-cautery BCVA (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution [logMAR]) and Schirmer's test (mm) improved from 0.5251 ± 0.662 to 0.372 ± 0.595 (P value = 0.000, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.09-0.22), and 1.952 ± 2.763 to 4.929 ± 4.338 (P value = 0.000, 95% CI: -3.79--2.17); post-cautery, respectively. The pre-cautery FSS of 5.9 ± 2.82 reduced to 1.58 ± 2.38 (P value = 0.000, 95% CI: 3.46-5.17) post-cautery. The mean follow-up was 11.22 ± 13.32 months. No progression in cicatricial changes was noted in any eye during the follow-up. Re-canalization rate was 10.64%, and repeat cautery was performed with successful closure of puncta. Conclusion: Symptoms and clinical signs of ATD in PCDE patients improve with punctal cautery.

Discovery of novel virulence mechanisms in Clostridium botulinum type A3 using genome-wide analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Clostridium botulinum type A is a neurotoxin-producing, spore-forming anaerobic bacterium that causes botulism in humans. The evolutionary genomic context of this organism is not yet known to understand its molecular virulence mechanisms in the human intestinal tract. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the mechanisms underlying virulence and pathogenesis by comparing the genomic contexts across species, serotypes, and subtypes. METHODS: A comparative genomic approach was used to analyze evolutionary genomic relationships, intergenomic distances, syntenic blocks, replication origins, and gene abundance with phylogenomic neighbors. RESULTS: Type A strains have shown genomic proximity to group I strains with distinct accessory genes and vary even within subtypes. Phylogenomic data showed that type C and D strains were distantly related to a group I and group II strains. Synthetic plots indicated that orthologous genes might have evolved from Clostridial ancestry to subtype A3 strains, whereas syntonic out-paralogs might have emerged between subtypes A3 and A1 through α-events. Gene abundance analysis revealed the key roles of genes involved in biofilm formation, cell-cell communication, human diseases, and drug resistance compared to the pathogenic Clostridia. Moreover, we identified 43 unique genes in the type A3 genome, of which 29 were involved in the pathophysiological processes and other genes contributed to amino acid metabolism. The C. botulinum type A3 genome contains 14 new virulence proteins that can provide the ability to confer antibiotic resistance, virulence exertion and adherence to host cells, the host immune system, and mobility of extrachromosomal genetic elements. CONCLUSION: The results of our study provide insight into the understanding of new virulence mechanisms to discover new therapeutics for the treatment of human diseases caused by type A3 strains.

Comparative evaluation of implant stability using bone expanders and conventional osteotomy.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the implant stability and bone implant contact obtained using bone expanders to conventional osteotomy. Materials and methods: In this multiphasic study, the first phase was conducted on ex vivo porcine models to standardize the procedure and to check its feasibility. The second phase was conducted as human clinical trial. Phase I: A total of 10 implants were placed in the premolar region on five exvivo porcine models in randomized sequence using conventional osteotomy drills and bone expanders/screw spreaders. Implant stability was measured using resonance frequency analyser on the day of implant placement. Radiological analysis was done using micro-CT in two sectional block specimens randomly selected from each study groups. Phase II: Implants were placed on ten patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Implants were placed after randomizing the osteotomy sites. Bone expanders were used in 5 sites and conventional osteotomy technique was used in 5 other sites. Implant stability was measured on the day of implant placement and after three months in pre-loaded state using resonance frequency analyser. Results: Phase I: Average implant stability quotient for bone expanders were 71.2% ± 3.8% and 66.4% ± 1.3% for conventional osteotomy respectively. Bone to implant contact ratio values for bone expanders were 84.7% ± 7.9% and conventional osteotomy drills were 66.3% ± 13.6%. Phase II: Average primary stability at the day of surgery was 71.4 ± 1.3 for bone expanders and 65.6 ± 2.4 for conventional osteotomy drills. After three months (per-loaded state), average primary stability of bone expanders were 74.8 ± 1.1 and conventional osteotomy drills were 71.8 ± 2.5. Conclusion: The bone expanders used when indicated can enhance implant stability and bone to implant contact. Thus osteotomy by bone expanders may be suggested as a promising method especially in compromised bone.

Implementation of Machine Learning Mechanism for Recognising Prostate Cancer through Photoacoustic Signal.

Biological tissues may be studied using photoacoustic (PA) spectroscopy, which can yield a wealth of physical and chemical data. However, it is really challenging to directly analyse these tissues because of a lot of data. Data mining techniques can get around this issue. In order to diagnose prostate cancer via PA spectrum assessment, this work describes the machine learning (ML) technique implementation, such as supervised classification and unsupervised hierarchical clustering. The collected PA signals were preprocessed using Pwelch method, and the features are extracted using two methods such as hierarchical cluster and correlation assessment. The extracted features are classified using four ML-methods, namely, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naïve Bayes (NB), decision tree C4.5, and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Furthermore, as these components alter throughout the progression of prostate cancer, this study focuses on the composition and distribution of collagen, lipids, and haemoglobin. In diseased tissues compared to normal tissues, there is a stronger correlation between the various chemical components ultrasonic power spectra, suggesting that the microstructural dispersion in tumour tissues has been more uniform. The accuracy of several classifiers used in cancer tissue diagnosis was greater than 94% for all four methods, which is effective than that of benchmark medical methods. Thus, the method shows significant promise for the noninvasive, early detection of severe prostate cancer.

Estimation of cytokine levels in gingival crevicular fluid following the use of different gingival retraction systems in patients requiring fixed partial dentures - An original research.

Gingival retraction is essential to get a dry and debris free field, which enables the impression material to flow into the gingival sulcus and record the area apical to the finish line. Effective gingival retraction without damaging periodontal tissue is extremely important. Objective: To comparatively evaluate the amount of inflammation, as assessed by TNF-α in GCF induced by three different gingival retraction techniques. Methods: Ten patients with a minimum of three teeth that required biomechanical preparation for fixed prostheses and acceptable oral hygiene with no periodontal pathology were included. The patients each received an oral prophylaxis. After a washout period of 10 days patients with gingival index scores of 0 or 1 were included. Measurements of TNF-α was done at baseline, after 30 min, after 7 days and after 28 days using ELISA test kit specific to TNF-α. Results: The sample population for whom Magic Foam cord was used showed a massive reduction in the amount of TNF -α, from 78% at 7 days to 18.6% at 28 days. There was a reduction in the percentage of TNF -α produced in the samples where normal knitted cord was used and for those where Expasyl was used from 95% to 64.2% and from 70% to 48.3% respectively. Conclusion: Maximum amount of inflammatory response was seen with plain knitted gingival retraction cord. This was followed by Expasyl gingival retraction system and the least amount of inflammatory cytokine was recorded with Magic Foam retraction cord.

A Modified Deep Learning Framework for Arrhythmia Disease Analysis in Medical Imaging Using Electrocardiogram Signal.

Arrhythmias are anomalies in the heartbeat rhythm that occur occasionally in people's lives. These arrhythmias can lead to potentially deadly consequences, putting your life in jeopardy. As a result, arrhythmia identification and classification are an important aspect of cardiac diagnostics. An electrocardiogram (ECG), a recording collecting the heart's pumping activity, is regarded the guideline for catching these abnormal episodes. Nevertheless, because the ECG contains so much data, extracting the crucial data from imagery evaluation becomes extremely difficult. As a result, it is vital to create an effective system for analyzing ECG's massive amount of data. The ECG image from ECG signal is processed by some image processing techniques. To optimize the identification and categorization process, this research presents a hybrid deep learning-based technique. This paper contributes in two ways. Automating noise reduction and extraction of features, 1D ECG data are first converted into 2D pictures. Then, based on experimental evidence, a hybrid model called CNNLSTM is presented, which combines CNN and LSTM models. We conducted a comprehensive research using the broadly used MIT_BIH arrhythmia dataset to assess the efficacy of the proposed CNN-LSTM technique. The results reveal that the proposed method has a 99.10 percent accuracy rate. Furthermore, the proposed model has an average sensitivity of 98.35 percent and a specificity of 98.38 percent. These outcomes are superior to those produced using other procedures, and they will significantly reduce the amount of involvement necessary by physicians.

Community Pharmacists' Knowledge, Attitude, and Nonprescription Dispensing Practices of Antibiotics: An Explorative Study in a Selected City of South India.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the community pharmacists' knowledge of antibiotics, their attitude toward antibiotic usage and antibiotic resistance, and their nonprescription dispensing practices of antibiotics. Methods: A cross sectional-questionnaire-based study was conducted among 75 community pharmacists practicing in a selected city of South India. Data on their age, years of experience, and educational qualifications were obtained. A modified, 33-items, prevalidated structured questionnaire was used to assess the community pharmacists knowledge, attitude, and nonprescription antibiotic dispensing practices knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP). The responses obtained were expressed in descriptive statistics. The association between years of experience and their KAP was assessed using Pearson's correlation. Findings: Most pharmacists (60%) agreed that antibiotics are used for bacterial infections, and 35% believed that antibiotics could be given for pain and inflammation. Fourty-one percentage of pharmacists agreed that dispensing antibiotics without prescription increases the risk of antibiotic resistance. Seventy-two percentage agreed that they are responsible for taking a prominent role in antimicrobial resistance and infection-control programs in healthcare. Only 46% of pharmacists stated that they always dispensed antibiotics only with a prescription, and 56% dispensed antibiotics for longer than the doctor prescribed. Amoxicillin, metronidazole, and cephalexin were the most commonly dispensed antibiotics without a prescription. The most common reason for dispensing antibiotics without a prescription was the fear of losing customers. Conclusion: The study identified an average KAP interquartile range 1 among community pharmacists, indicating a lack of awareness of antibiotic resistance and dispensing antibiotics without a prescription.

Protective role of All Trans Retinoic Acid on B16F10 melanoma cell line metastasis in C57BL/6 mice by enhancing RAR- ß protein and homeostasis maintenance.

Lung cancer is the leading cancer according to the World Health Organization (WHO), resulting in highest death rate worldwide due to the high level of metastasis. Hence, the drugs that protect from metastasis either as an adjuvant or a primary therapeutic agent may help to reduce the death rate. In this study, All Trans Retinoic Acid (ATRA) was tested for its action against metastatic lodging of B16F10 melanoma cells in the lung and liver of the C57BL/6 mouse model. Serum, lung and liver were evaluated biochemically for the cancer associated changes. Metastatic cancer development was confirmed by tumor nodule formation and histopathological analysis. RAR-ß protein expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and histopathology. ATRA treated mice showed a percentage of inhibition on metastatic tumor growth in lung and liver and a corresponding protection against pathological changes in these organs. Cholesterol and γ-Glutamyl Transferase (GGT) levels found in cancer induced mice were reduced in the ATRA treated group. As compared to the normal group, lung tissue from cell line induced cancer control group had less RAR-ß protein expression while the ATRA treated group showed enhanced RAR-ß protein expression. This indicates that the anti-metastasis effects of ATRA might have shown the induction of RAR-ß expression and subsequent molecular signaling pathways to regulate the homeostasis of biochemical changes. This study demonstrated the capability of ATRA to prevent the establishment of metastasis by the melanoma cell line into the lung and liver of experimental mice.

A hijack mechanism of Indian SARS-CoV-2 isolates for relapsing contemporary antiviral therapeutics.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) rapidly expands to a global pandemic and its impact on public health varies from country to country. It is caused by a new virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is imperative for relapsing current antiviral therapeutics owing to randomized genetic drift in global SARS-CoV-2 isolates. A molecular mechanism behind the emerging genomic variants is not yet understood for the prioritization of selective antivirals. The present computational study was aimed to repurpose existing antivirals for Indian SARS-CoV-2 isolates by uncovering a hijack mechanism based on structural and functional characteristics of protein variants. Forty-one protein mutations were identified in 12 Indian SARS-CoV-2 isolates by analysis of genome variations across 460 genome sequences obtained from 30 geographic sites in India. Two unique mutations such as W6152R and N5928H found in exonuclease of Surat (GBRC275b) and Gandhinagar (GBRC239) isolates. We report for the first time the impact of folding rate on stabilizing/retaining a sequence-structure-function-virulence link of emerging protein variants leading to accommodate hijack ability from current antivirals. Binding affinity analysis revealed the effect of point mutations on virus infectivity and the drug-escaping efficiency of Indian isolates. Emodin and artinemol suggested herein as repurposable antivirals for the treatment of COVID-19 patients infected with Indian isolates. Our study concludes that a protein folding rate is a key structural and evolutionary determinant to enhance the receptor-binding specificity and ensure hijack ability from the prevalent antiviral therapeutics.

Genomics insights of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) into target-based drug discovery.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). COVID-19 is a global health emergency and no clinically approved vaccines or antiviral drugs available to date. Intensive research on SARS-CoV-2 is urgently warranted to understand its pathogenesis and virulence mechanisms and to discover target-based antiviral therapeutics. Among various research logics, current bioinformatics highlights novel testable hypotheses for systematic drug repositioning and designing against COVID-19. A total of 121 articles related to bioinformatics facets of this virus were collected from the PubMed Central. The content of each investigation was comprehensively reviewed, manually curated, and included herein. Interestingly, 109 COVID-19-related literature published in 2020 (January-June) were included in this review. The present article emphasizes novel resource development on its genome structure, evolution, therapeutic targets, drug designing, and drug repurposing strategies. Genome organization, the function of coding genes, origin, and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 is described in detail. Genomic insights into understanding the structure-function relationships of drug targets including spike, main protease, and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of SARS-CoV-2 are discussed intensively. Several molecular docking and systems pharmacology approaches have been investigated some promising antiviral drugs against SARS-CoV-2 based on its genomic characteristics, pathogenesis mechanism, and host specificity. Perhaps, the present genomic insights of this virus will provide a lead to the researchers to design or repurpose of antiviral drugs soon and future directions to control the spread of COVID-19.

Gaussian mixture model based clustering of Manual muscle testing grades using surface Electromyogram signals.

Muscle strength testing has long been an important assessment procedure in rehabilitation setups, though the subjectivity and standardization of this procedure has been widely debated. To address this issue, this study involves the use of Electromyogram (EMG) features that are intuitively related to muscle strength to classify Manual muscle testing (MMT) grades of '4 -', '4', '4 + ' and '5' of the Medical Research Council scale. MMT was performed on Tibialis anterior muscle of 50 healthy participants whose MMT grades and EMG were simultaneously acquired. Chi square goodness of fit and Spectrum Decomposition of Graph Laplacian (SPEC) feature selection algorithms are used in selecting five features, namely Integrated EMG, Root Mean Square EMG, Waveform Length, Wilsons' amplitude and Energy. Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) approach is used for unsupervised clustering into one of the grades. Internal cluster evaluation resulted in Silhouette score of 0.76 and Davies Bouldin Index of 0.42 indicating good cluster separability. Agreement between the machine-based grade and manual grade has been quantified using Cohens' Kappa coefficient. A value of '0.44' has revealed a moderate agreement, with greater differences reported in grading '4' and '4 + ' strength levels. The comparative advantage of EMG based grading over the manual method has been proved. The suggested method can be extended for muscle strength testing of all muscles across different age groups to assist physicians in evaluating patient strength and plan appropriate strength conditioning exercises as a part of rehabilitative assessment.

Strengthening of banana breeding through data digitalization.

Improvement of edible bananas (a triploid and sterile crop) through conventional breeding is a challenging task owing to its recalcitrant nature for seed set, prolonged crop duration. In addition, the need of huge man power at different stages of progeny development and evaluation often leads to mislabeling, poor data management and loss of vital data. All this can be overcome by the application of advanced information technology source. This ensured secure and efficient data management such as storage, retrieval and data analysis and further could assist in tracking the breeding status in real time. Thus, a user-friendly web-based banana breeding tracker (BBT) has been developed using MySQL database with Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP). This BBT works on all operating systems with access to multiple users from anywhere at any time. Quick responsive (QR) code labels can be generated by the tracker, which can be decoded using QR scanner. Also for each and every updated progress in breeding stages, a new QR code can be generated, which in turn reduce labeling errors. Moreover, the tracker has additional tools to search, sort and filter the data from the data sets for efficient retrieval and analysis. This tracker is being upgraded with phenotypic and genotypic data that will be made available in the public domain for hastening the banana improvement program.

An in vitro study of comparative evaluation of efficacy of electrochemically activated water as a root canal irrigant in smear layer removal.

AIM: The aim was to compare and evaluate the efficacy of electrochemically activated water (ECA) against maleic acid, Mixture of tetracycline, acid and detergent. ie; 3% doxycycline, 4.25% citric acid, and 0.5% Tween 80 detergent (MTAD), Sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), and saline as root canal irrigants in removing the smear layer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty single canal mandibular premolars were randomly divided into five groups (n = 4), decoronated, prepared to working length, and instrumented till F3 using protaper gold rotary files. Each group was assigned a different irrigant. Saline-negative control and NaOCl-positive control. Teeth were sectioned and subjected to Scanning Electron Microscopic analysis. ECA was prepared using a custom-made apparatus having two chambers of capacity 50 ml each separated by a polymer membrane. About 40 ml of tap water was collected in each chamber. Two graphite electrodes were connected to the top of the compartments, linked to a power supply which initiates electrolysis, and the solutions obtained in anodic and cathodic compartments were collected. Statistical analysis was done using one-way ANOVA and Post hoc Tukey analysis. RESULTS: NaOCl, maleic acid, and ECA had similar smear layer removal efficacy. MTAD was less efficient than the other irrigants tested. Saline did not remove the smear layer. CONCLUSION: Electrochemically activated water has promising smear layer removal efficacy and is comparable with conventional root canal irrigants.

Cell type-specific modulation of sensory and affective components of itch in the periaqueductal gray.

Itch is a distinct aversive sensation that elicits a strong urge to scratch. Despite recent advances in our understanding of the peripheral basis of itch, we know very little regarding how central neural circuits modulate acute and chronic itch processing. Here we establish the causal contributions of defined periaqueductal gray (PAG) neuronal populations in itch modulation in mice. Chemogenetic manipulations demonstrate bidirectional modulation of scratching by neurons in the PAG. Fiber photometry studies show that activity of GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons in the PAG is modulated in an opposing manner during chloroquine-evoked scratching. Furthermore, activation of PAG GABAergic neurons or inhibition of glutamatergic neurons resulted in attenuation of scratching in both acute and chronic pruritis. Surprisingly, PAG GABAergic neurons, but not glutamatergic neurons, may encode the aversive component of itch. Thus, the PAG represents a neuromodulatory hub that regulates both the sensory and affective aspects of acute and chronic itch.

Fully implantable, battery-free wireless optoelectronic devices for spinal optogenetics.

The advent of optogenetic tools has allowed unprecedented insights into the organization of neuronal networks. Although recently developed technologies have enabled implementation of optogenetics for studies of brain function in freely moving, untethered animals, wireless powering and device durability pose challenges in studies of spinal cord circuits where dynamic, multidimensional motions against hard and soft surrounding tissues can lead to device degradation. We demonstrate here a fully implantable optoelectronic device powered by near-field wireless communication technology, with a thin and flexible open architecture that provides excellent mechanical durability, robust sealing against biofluid penetration and fidelity in wireless activation, thereby allowing for long-term optical stimulation of the spinal cord without constraint on the natural behaviors of the animals. The system consists of a double-layer, rectangular-shaped magnetic coil antenna connected to a microscale inorganic light-emitting diode (µ-ILED) on a thin, flexible probe that can be implanted just above the dura of the mouse spinal cord for effective stimulation of light-sensitive proteins expressed in neurons in the dorsal horn. Wireless optogenetic activation of TRPV1-ChR2 afferents with spinal µ-ILEDs causes nocifensive behaviors and robust real-time place aversion with sustained operation in animals over periods of several weeks to months. The relatively low-cost electronics required for control of the systems, together with the biocompatibility and robust operation of these devices will allow broad application of optogenetics in future studies of spinal circuits, as well as various peripheral targets, in awake, freely moving and untethered animals, where existing approaches have limited utility.