Human spinal arachnoid villi revisited: immunohistological study and review of the literature

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Shane Tubbs ◽  
Ake Hansasuta ◽  
William Stetler ◽  
David R. Kelly ◽  
Danitra Blevins ◽  
...  

Object Few have described the relationship between arachnoid protrusions (villi) and adjacent spinal radicular veins, and the descriptions that do exist are conflicting. Some authors have even denied the presence of spinal arachnoid villi, suggesting that they play no role in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) absorption. Methods To further elucidate these structures, laminectomies from C-2 inferiorly to S-2 were performed in 10 fresh human adult cadavers. Following removal of the laminae, the dural nerve sleeves were identified and the spinal nerves excised 1 cm lateral and medial to the intervertebral foramina. Samples were submitted for histological and immunohistological analysis. Results The authors identified arachnoid villi in all specimens. The length of these structures was approximately 50 to 170 μm. Regionally, these villi were more concentrated in the lumbar region, but they were not present at every vertebral level, with observed skip zones. Occasionally, more than one villus was identified per vertebral level. The majority of villi were intimately related to an adjacent radicular vein. There was a direct relationship between the size of the adjacent radicular vein, and the presence and number of arachnoid villi. Conclusions Findings in the present study have demonstrated that arachnoid villi exist and are morphologically associated with radicular veins. These data support the theory that CSF absorption occurs not only intracranially but also along the spinal axis. Further animal studies are necessary to prove that CSF traverses these villi and is absorbed into the spinal venous system.

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Kathrin Burmeister ◽  
Katrin Drasch ◽  
Monika Rinder ◽  
Sebastian Prechsl ◽  
Andrea Peschel ◽  
...  

Only a few birds besides domestic pigeons and poultry can be described as domesticated. Therefore, keeping a pet bird can be challenging, and the human-avian relationship will have a major influence on the quality of this cohabitation. Studies that focus on characterizing the owner-bird relationship generally use adapted cat/dog scales which may not identify its specific features. Following a sociological approach, a concept of human-animal relationship was developed leading to three types of human-animal relationship (impersonal, personal, and close personal). This concept was used to develop a 21-item owner-bird-relationship scale (OBRS). This scale was applied to measure the relationship between pet bird owners (or keepers) (n = 1,444) and their birds in an online survey performed in Germany. Factor analysis revealed that the relationship between owner and bird consisted of four dimensions: the tendency of the owner to anthropomorphize the bird; the social support the bird provides for the owner; the empathy, attentiveness, and respect of the owner toward the bird; and the relationship of the bird toward the owner. More than one quarter of the German bird owners of this sample showed an impersonal, half a personal, and less than a quarter a close personal relationship to their bird. The relationship varied with the socio-demographic characteristics of the owners, such as gender, marital status, and education. This scale supports more comprehensive quantitative research into the human-bird relationship in the broad field of human-animal studies including the psychology and sociology of animals as well as animal welfare and veterinary medicine.


Author(s):  
Linda Kalof

This chapter introduces the field of animal studies as an interdisciplinary scholarly endeavor to understand the relationship humans have with other animals. That relationship is mapped into five major categories, reflected in the titles of each of the handbook’s five parts: “Animals in the Landscape of Law, Politics and Public Policy”; “Animal Intentionality, Agency, and Reflexive Thinking”; “Animals as Objects in Science, Food, Spectacle and Sport”; “Animals in Cultural Representations”; and “Animals in Ecosystems.” The chapters in each part are summarized and key issues in the “animal question” are explicated. Chapter topics include animals in research, entertainment, law, political theory, public policy, agency, tourism and ecology. Concluding remarks include an appeal for altruistic coexistence for all beings in the earth’s ecosystem.


Author(s):  
Priyadarshni Patel ◽  
Jeganathan Ramesh Babu ◽  
Xu Wang ◽  
Thangiah Geetha

Obesity is caused by a combination of hereditary and environmental factors. Despite extensive study, contemporary through diet, exercise, education, surgery, and pharmacological treatments, no effective long-term solution has been found to this epidemic. Over the last decade, there has been a tremendous advancement in understanding the science of epigenetics, as well as a rise in public interest in learning more about the influence of diet and lifestyle choices on the health of an individual. Without affecting the underlying DNA sequence, epigenetic alterations impact gene expression. Previous animal studies have shown a link between the type of diet and expression or suppression of obesity genes, but there are very few human studies that demonstrate the relationship between dietary intake and obesity gene expression. This review highlights the effects of carbohydrates, lipids, and protein intake from the diet on obesity-related genes.


Work ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (s1) ◽  
pp. S251-S255
Author(s):  
Amalia Vanacore ◽  
Antonio Lanzotti ◽  
Chiara Percuoco ◽  
Agostino Capasso ◽  
Bonaventura Vitolo

BACKGROUND: Aircraft seating comfort has a significant impact on passenger on-board experience. Its assessment requires the adoption of well-designed strategies for data collection as well as appropriate data analysis methods in order to obtain accurate and reliable results. OBJECTIVES: This paper focuses on the assessment of aircraft seating comfort based on subjective comfort responses collected during laboratory experiments and taking into account seat features and passenger characteristics. METHODS: The subjective comfort evaluations have been analyzed using a model-based approach to investigate the relationship between overall seating comfort and specific seat/user characteristics. RESULTS: The results show that the overall seating comfort perception is significantly influenced by the thickness of the seat pan, the backrest position (upright or reclined), the age of the passenger and the passenger perception of being comfortably supported at the lumbar region. CONCLUSIONS: The adopted model-based approach allows the analysis of subjective seating comfort data taking into account their ordinal nature as well as the dependency between evaluations provided by the same subject.


1999 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric M. Massicotte ◽  
Marc R. Del Bigio

Object. The origin of chronic communicating hydrocephalus following subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is not well understood. Fibrosis of the arachnoid villi has been suggested as the cause for obstruction of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow, but this is not well supported in the literature. The goal of this study was to determine the relationship between blood, inflammation, and cellular proliferation in arachnoid villi after SAH.Methods. Arachnoid villi from 50 adult patients were sampled at autopsy. All specimens were subjected to a variety of histochemical and immunohistochemical stains. The 23 cases of SAH consisted of patients in whom an autopsy was performed 12 hours to 34 years post-SAH. Fifteen cases were identified as moderate-to-severe SAH, with varying degrees of hydrocephalus. In comparison with 27 age-matched non-SAH controls, the authors observed blood and inflammation within the arachnoid villi during the 1st week after SAH. Greater mitotic activity was also noted among arachnoid cap cells. The patient with chronic SAH presented with ventriculomegaly 2 months post-SAH and exhibited remarkable arachnoid cap cell accumulation.Conclusions. The authors postulate that proliferation of arachnoidal cells, triggered by the inflammatory reaction or blood clotting products, could result in obstruction of CSF flow through arachnoid villi into the venous sinuses. This does not exclude the possibility that SAH causes generalized fibrosis in the subarachnoid space.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Tseng ◽  
Pina M. Fratamico ◽  
Shannon D. Manning ◽  
Julie A. Funk

AbstractShiga toxin-producingEscherichia coli(STEC) strains are food-borne pathogens that are an important public health concern. STEC infection is associated with severe clinical diseases in human beings, including hemorrhagic colitis (HC) and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which can lead to kidney failure and death. Cattle are the most important STEC reservoir. However, a number of STEC outbreaks and HUS cases have been attributed to pork products. In swine, STEC strains are known to be associated with edema disease. Nevertheless, the relationship between STEC of swine origin and human illness has yet to be determined. This review critically summarizes epidemiologic and biological studies of swine STEC. Several epidemiologic studies conducted in multiple regions of the world have demonstrated that domestic swine can carry and shed STEC. Moreover, animal studies have demonstrated that swine are susceptible to STEC O157:H7 infection and can shed the bacterium for 2 months. A limited number of molecular epidemiologic studies, however, have provided conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between swine STEC and human illness. The role that swine play in STEC transmission to people and the contribution to human disease frequency requires further evaluation.


2005 ◽  
Vol 288 (4) ◽  
pp. R819-R827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry N. Thrasher

Whether arterial baroreceptors play a role in setting the long-term level of mean arterial pressure (MAP) has been debated for more than 75 years. Because baroreceptor input is reciprocally related to efferent sympathetic nerve activity (SNA), it is obvious that baroreceptor unloading would cause an increase in MAP. Experimental proof of concept is evident acutely after baroreceptor denervation. Chronically, however, baroreceptor denervation is associated with highly variable changes in MAP but not sustained hypertension. The ability of baroreceptors to buffer imposed increases in MAP appears limited by a process termed “resetting,” in which the threshold to fire shifts in the direction of the pressure change and if the pressure elevation is maintained, it leads to a rightward shift in the relationship between baroreceptor firing and MAP. The most common hypothesis linking baroreceptors to changes in MAP proposes that reduced vascular distensibility in baroreceptive areas would cause reduced firing at the same pulsatile pressure and, thus, reflexively increase SNA. This review focuses on effects of baroreceptor denervation in the regulation of MAP in human subjects compared with animal studies; the relationship between vascular compliance, MAP, and baroreceptor resetting; and, finally, the effect of chronic baroreceptor unloading on the regulation of MAP.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (7) ◽  
pp. 1004-1010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sovira Tan ◽  
Jianhua Yao ◽  
John A. Flynn ◽  
Lawrence Yao ◽  
Michael M. Ward

Objective.Because zygapophyseal joints (ZJ) are difficult to visualize on radiographs, little is known about the relationship of ZJ fusion to other features of spinal damage in ankylosing spondylitis (AS). We used computed tomography (CT) to investigate the concordance of ZJ fusion and syndesmophytes, and examined the contribution of both features to spinal motion.Methods.We performed thoracolumbar CT scans (T10–T11 to L3–L4) on 55 patients. Two readers scored scans for ZJ fusion, which were compared to syndesmophyte height and extent of bridging, measured by computer algorithm at the same levels. We used multiple regression analysis to evaluate the relative contributions of ZJ fusion and syndesmophytes to spinal mobility.Results.Fifty-one percent of patients had ZJ fusion in at least 1 vertebral level. Fusion was present in 129 of 652 individual ZJ. Syndesmophytes and bridging were often present in vertebral levels without ZJ fusion, suggesting that syndesmophytes most often develop first. ZJ fusion was present in 34% of vertebral levels with syndesmophytes and 55.9% of levels with bridging, suggesting a closer association with bridging. Syndesmophytes and ZJ fusion had similar associations with the modified Schober test, but syndesmophytes were more strongly associated with limitations in lateral thoracolumbar flexion. ZJ rarely showed new fusion over 4 years.Conclusion.Thoracolumbar ZJ fusion in AS is rarely present at vertebral levels without syndesmophytes. Syndesmophytes, therefore, likely appear before ZJ fusion at a given vertebral level. Both syndesmophytes and ZJ fusion contribute to limited forward lumbar flexion, but syndesmophytes contribute more to limited lateral flexion.


2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (10) ◽  
pp. 3116-3121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomáš Sieger ◽  
Tereza Serranová ◽  
Filip Růžička ◽  
Pavel Vostatek ◽  
Jiří Wild ◽  
...  

Both animal studies and studies using deep brain stimulation in humans have demonstrated the involvement of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in motivational and emotional processes; however, participation of this nucleus in processing human emotion has not been investigated directly at the single-neuron level. We analyzed the relationship between the neuronal firing from intraoperative microrecordings from the STN during affective picture presentation in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and the affective ratings of emotional valence and arousal performed subsequently. We observed that 17% of neurons responded to emotional valence and arousal of visual stimuli according to individual ratings. The activity of some neurons was related to emotional valence, whereas different neurons responded to arousal. In addition, 14% of neurons responded to visual stimuli. Our results suggest the existence of neurons involved in processing or transmission of visual and emotional information in the human STN, and provide evidence of separate processing of the affective dimensions of valence and arousal at the level of single neurons as well.


1975 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 523-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Marmarou ◽  
Kenneth Shulman ◽  
James LaMorgese

✓ The distribution of compliance and outflow resistance between cerebral and spinal compartments was measured in anesthetized, ventilated cats by analysis of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure response to changes in CSF volume. Cerebral and spinal compartments were isolated by inflating a balloon positioned epidurally at the level of C-6. The change of CSF volume per unit change in pressure (compliance) and change of CSF volume per unit of time (absorption) were evaluated by inserting pressure data from the experimental responses into a series of equations developed from a mathematical model. It was found that 68% of total compliance is contributed by the cerebral compartment while the remaining 32% is contained within the spinal axis. The cerebral compartment accounted for 84% of total CSF absorption. The mechanism for spinal absorption appears to be similar in that no differences were obvious on the basis of pressure dynamics.


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