Military medicine
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The mechanical response of brain tissue to high-speed forces in the blast and blunt traumatic brain injury is poorly understood. Object-to-object variation and interspecies differences are current limitations in animal and cadaver studies conducted to study damage mechanisms. Biofidelic and transparent tissue simulants allow the use of high-speed optical diagnostics during a blast event, making it possible to observe deformations and damage patterns for comparison to observed injuries seen post-mortem in traumatic brain injury victims. ⋯ These materials are intended for use as layered cranial phantoms in a shock tube and open field blasts, with focus on observing phenomena occurring at the interfaces of adjacent tissue simulant types or material-fluid boundaries. Mechanistic findings from these studies may be used to inform the design of protective gear to mitigate blast injuries.
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Severe trauma to the spinal cord leads to a near complete loss of blood flow at the injury site along with significant hypoperfusion of adjacent tissues. Characterization and monitoring of local tissue hypoperfusion is currently not possible in clinical practice because available imaging techniques do not allow for assessment of blood flow with sufficient spatial and temporal resolutions. The objective of the current study was to determine whether ultrafast contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging could be used to visualize and quantify acute hemodynamic changes in a rat traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) model. ⋯ We conclude that CEUS has the spatial and temporal sensitivity and resolution to visualize local tissue perfusion and vessel architecture, which maybe useful clinically to determine injury extent and severity in patients with SCI.
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Tissue injuries are often associated with abnormal blood flow (BF). The ability to assess BF distributions in injured tissues enables objective evaluation of interventions and holds the potential to improve the acute management of these injuries on battlefield. ⋯ The unique noncontact 3D imaging capability makes the scDCT applicable for intraoperative assessment of burns/wounds, without risk of infection and without interfering with sterility of the surgical field. The portable scDCT device holds the potential to be used by surgeons in combat surgical hospitals to improve the acute management of battlefield burn injuries.
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Although concussion continues to be a major source of acute and chronic injuries, concussion injury mechanisms and risk functions are ill-defined. This lack of definition has hindered efforts to develop standardized concussion monitoring, safety testing, and protective countermeasures. To overcome this knowledge gap, we have developed, tested, and deployed a head impact monitoring mouthguard (IMM) system. ⋯ While these data are useful for preliminary human tolerance limits, a larger population must be used to quantify real-world dose response as a function of impact magnitude, direction, location, and accumulation. This work is ongoing.
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The aim of this study was to quantify the extent of donor-cell-derived myogenesis achieved by a novel surgical technique known as Minimally Invasive Muscle Embedding (MIME). ⋯ In MIME-treated muscles, 22% ± 7% and 78% ± 7% muscle fibers were RFP+ and GFP+, respectively (mean ± standard deviation); and all RFP+ fibers were positive for desmin and dystrophin. Conclusion. We conclude that MIME helps generate muscle fibers of donor origin, in host muscle.