Sharif Digital Repository

Atrogenic injuries to paraspinal muscles during the posterior lumbar surgery (PLS) cause a reduction in their cross-sectional areas (CSAs) and contractile densities over time post-surgery. This study aims to quantify such alterations. Method: Pre- and postoperative CSAs (~6 months interval) of all paraspinal muscles were measured in six patients undergoing PLS using a 3-T magnetic resonance (MR) scanner to quantify the alterations in geometrical and tissue effective contractile (non-fatty) CSAs of these muscles at all lumbar levels. To examine the presence of any confounding effects on recorded changes within ~7-month period, measurements were also carried out on ten healthy volunteers.... 

Purpose: Cardiac multimodal image fusion can offer an image with various types of information in a single image. Many coronary stenosis, which are anatomically clear, are not functionally significant. The treatment of such kind of stenosis can cause irreversible effects on the patient. Thus, choosing the best treatment planning depend on anatomical and functional information is very beneficial. Methods: An algorithm for the fusion of coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) as an anatomical and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) as a functional modality is presented. CCTA and TTE are temporally registered using manifold learning. A pattern search optimization algorithm, using... 

Purpose: Although it has been proposed that individuals with patellofemoral pain show less lower limb intersegmental coordination variability, the evidence to support this hypothesis is rare. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to evaluate whether individuals with patellofemoral pain exhibit less intersegmental coordination variability compared with healthy individuals during walking and running. Also, it was hypothesized that increasing task demand would exacerbate group differences regarding coordination variability measures. Methods: Three-dimensional kinematics were collected while 17 females with patellofemoral pain and 17 healthy females walked at preferred speed, and ran at... 

Purpose: Core Bone Plug Fixation (CBPF) technique is an implant-less methodology for ACL reconstruction. This study investigates the effect of bone density on CBPF stability to identify the bone quality that is likely to benefit from this technique. Methods: Artificial blocks with 160 (Group 1), 240 (Group 2), and 320 (Group 3) kg/m3 densities were used to simulate human bone with diverse qualities. These groups are representative of the elderly, middle age and young people, respectively. A tunnel was made in each test sample using a cannulated drill bit which enabled harvesting the core bone plug intact. Fresh animal tendon grafts were prepared and passed through the tunnel, so the core... 

The social impact of robotics applied to domains such as education, religion, nursing, and therapy across the world depends on the level of technology as well as the culture in which it is used. By studying how robots are used in Iran, a technologically-savvy country with a long history and a rich culture, we explore their possible impact on interrelated areas of religious and ethical features in education in an Islamic society. To accomplish this task, a preliminary exploratory study was conducted using two social robots as teaching assistants in Islamic religion classes for 42 elementary students. More than 90% of the participants in the study absolutely preferred the robot-assisted... 

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) includes different neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities. Based on the importance of early diagnosis for effective therapeutic intervention, several strategies have been employed for detection of the disorder. The artificial neural network (ANN) as a type of machine learning method is a common strategy. In the current study, we extracted genomic data for 487 ASD patients and 455 healthy individuals. All individuals were genotyped in certain single-nucleotide polymorphisms within retinoic acid-related orphan receptor alpha (RORA), gamma-aminobutyric... 

Purpose: Endometriosis is a gynecological disease that causes the uterine lining to appear in other organs outside the uterus. As DNA methylation has an important role in this disorder, its profiling can reveal new information to improve the diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis patients. Methods: We conducted a genome-wide methylation profiling of ectopic and eutopic endometrial tissues from women with and without endometriosis using Infinium Human Methylation 450K BeadChip arrays. DNA methylation samples were collected from nine ectopic and nine eutopic endometrial tissues of endometriosis and six endometrial tissues of healthy controls. Results: Correlation heatmaps and the principal... 

Background: Wolfram syndrome (WFS) is characterized by deafness, diabetes mellitus, and diabetes insipidus along with optic atrophy. WFS has an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance and is due to variants in WFS1 and CISD2. Methods: We evaluated the underlying molecular etiology of three affected members of a consanguineous family with hearing impairment, bicuspid aortic valve, diabetes mellitus and insipidus, clinodactyly, and gastrointestinal tract abnormalities via exome sequencing approach. We correlated clinical and imaging data with the genetic findings and their associated phenotypes. Results: We identified a homozygous missense variant p.(Asn1097Lys) in CDK13, a gene previously... 

Contrast induced nephropathy (CIN) has been reported to be the third foremost cause of acute renal failure. Metabolomics is a robust technique that has been used to identify potential biomarkers for the prediction of renal damage. We aim to analyze the serum and urine metabolites changes, before and after using contrast for coronary angiography, to determine if metabolomics can predict early development of CIN. 66 patients undergoing elective coronary angiography were eligible for enrollment. Urine and serum samples were collected prior to administration of CM and 72 h post procedure and analyzed by nuclear magnetic resonance. The significant differential metabolites between patients who... 

Investigating human brain activity during expressing emotional states provides deep insight into complex cognitive functions and neurological correlations inside the brain. To be able to resemble the brain function in the best manner, a complex and natural stimulus should be applied as well, the method used for data analysis should have fewer assumptions, simplifications, and parameter adjustment. In this study, we examined a functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset obtained during an emotional audio-movie stimulus associated with human life. We used Jackknife Correlation (JC) method to derive a representation of time-varying functional connectivity. We applied different binary measures... 

Inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathies are a group of peripheral nerve system disorders in which immune reactions are dysregulated. Cytokines have noticeable roles in the regulation of these responses. We compared transcript levels of nine cytokine coding genes namely IL-1B, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-17A, IFN-G, TGF-B and TNF-A in the peripheral blood of patients with acute and chronic kinds of this condition (AIDP and CIDP) and healthy persons. Expression of IL-17A was significantly lower in female AIDP cases compared with female controls (Expression Ratio = 0.02, P value = 0.02). Expression of this cytokine was higher in female CIDP cases compared with female AIDP cases... 

The NF-κB family includes some transcription factors which have important functions in the regulation of immune responses, therefore participating in the pathophysiology of inflammatory conditions such as peripheral neuropathies. We have quantified expression of a number of NF-κB-related transcripts in patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) versus healthy subjects. These transcripts have been previously shown to be functionally related with this family of transcription factors. Expressions of ATG5, DICER-AS1, PACER, DILC, NKILA and ADINR have been increased in both CIDP and GBS patients compared with controls. However,... 

The increased number of female smokers is considered a global health challenge in recent years. One of the detrimental effects of smoking is sexual hormone fluctuation causing female sexual dysfunction (FSD). This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the effects of smoking leading to FSD. Electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, Science Direct, and Google Scholar) were hired for systematic searching. Until June 2022, whole qualified studies reporting the consequences of smoking on FSD were gathered for data analysis based on the random effects model (CMA software, v.2). Study heterogeneity and publication bias were also assessed using I2 index and... 

Background: Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) gene. A-T patients manifest considerable variability in clinical and immunological features, suggesting the presence of genetic modifying factors. A striking heterogeneity has been observed in class switching recombination (CSR) in A-T patients which cannot be explained by the severity of ATM mutations. Methods: To investigate the cause of variable CSR in A-T patients, we applied whole-exome sequencing (WES) in 20 A-T patients consisting of 10 cases with CSR defect (CSR-D) and 10 controls with normal CSR (CSR-N). Comparative analyses on modifier... 

Although medical advancements have successfully helped a lot of couples with their infertility by assisted reproductive technologies (ART), sperm selection, a crucial stage in ART, has remained challenging. Therefore, we aimed to investigate novel sperm separation methods, specifically microfluidic systems, as they do sperm selection based on sperm and/or the female reproductive tract (FRT) features without inflicting any damage to the selected sperm during the process. In this review, after an exhaustive studying of FRT features, which can implement by microfluidics devices, the focus was centered on sperm selection and investigation devices. During this study, we tried not to only point to... 

In this study, using fluid-structure interaction (FSI), 3-dimensional blood flow in an aneurysm in the circle of Willis-which is located in the middle cerebral artery (MCA)-has been simulated. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of a partly blocked vessel on an aneurysm. To achieve this purpose, two cases have been investigated using the FSI method: in the first case, an ideal geometry of aneurysm in the MCA has been simulated; in the second case, modeling is performed for an ideal geometry of the aneurysm in the MCA with a partly blocked vessel. All boundary conditions, properties and modeling methods were considered the same for both cases. The only difference between the... 

Objectives: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a rheumatic disorder that is mostly determined by genetic and environmental factors. Given the known importance of macrophage in AS pathogenesis, we investigated the transcriptional profile of macrophage cells in the disease. Methods and Results: Two approaches of differential expression and subsequently, weighted gene co-expression network analysis was utilized to analyze a publicly available microarray dataset of macrophages. Integral membrane protein 2A (ITM2A) was among the most significant genes with a decreased trend in the common results of both methods. In order to confirm the finding, the expression of ITM2A was evaluated in... 

Introduction: This study was conducted to investigate the relationship of glomerular and tubular dysfunctions with glycaemic control, lipid, lipoprotein, apolipoproteins and antioxidant status in 72 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods: Urine albumin concentration was measured by immunoturbidimetric and urine N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) and alanine aminopeptidase (AAP) activities with colorimetric methods. Glycated haemoglobin was measured using affinity chromatography. Erythrocyte glu ta thione reductase and glutathione peroxidase activities and serum levels of malondialdehyde, lipids, lipoproteins and apolipoproteins were determined in patients with type 2 diabetes... 

Background: Controlling pelvic excursions is the focus of stabilization exercises such as legs loading tasks in rehabilitation of non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) patients. Progression of these exercises is based on the ability to perform tasks with minimal sagittal pelvic excursions. In spite of emphasis on minimizing pelvic motions, no previous studies have investigated kinematic analysis of the pelvic excursions during leg loading exercises in NSCLBP patients. Objective: This study aims to investigate the sagittal pelvis excursion during performing asymmetric leg loading tasks in individuals with and without NSCLBP. Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, kinematic... 

Nowadays, as technology grows, human life formation changes every second. These changes sometimes create harmful habits and affect our lifestyle, which unfortunately bring various diseases and disorders. ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) & SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) are common disorders in children. By giving children the right treatment at the younger ages, we can help them overcome their disabilities and not face any symptoms in their adulthood. The multi-sensory balance board is designed and developed to help medics diagnose the disorders in patients at early stages and monitor the treatment progress. The balance board uses multiple sensors to detect common human...