Penetration of Calcified Lesions in Chronic Total Occlusion Using a Brockenbrough Needle

Endovascular treatment of calcified and occluded lesions remains a challenge. Dense calcifications in occlusive lesions hinder the advancement of guidewires, angioplasty balloon catheters, and stenting. We present a technique of piercing calcifications in a patient with chronic total occlusion (CTO)of the superficial femoral artery(SFA)using a Brockenbrough needle. The case was a 79-year-old man with resting pain in the left leg for a month. The ankle-brachial index in his left lower limb was 0.45. Duplex scanning and angiography revealed complete occlusion of the proximal left SFA. Endovascular treatment for the recanalization of the SFA-CTO was carried out using the bidirectional approach. Only the coronary CTO wire was able to cross the lesion, with the balloon catheters failing to cross. To widen the crossing site,a Brockenbrough needle was applied to penetrate the lesion. The needle successfully passed the lesion, and balloon passage was possible. Following predilatation, we deployed two Nitinol self-expandable stents. We confirmed the patency of this lesion with duplex sonography and angiogram 18 months later.Article信州医学雑誌 59(2): 97-102(2011)departmental bulletin pape

Monte Carlo simulation of pressure-induced phase transitions in spin-crossover materials

Pressure-induced phase transitions of spin-crossover materials were simulated by a Monte Carlo simulation in the constant pressure ensemble for the first time. Here, as the origin of the cooperative interaction, we adopt elastic interaction among the distortions of the lattice due to the difference of the molecular sizes in different spin states, i.e., the high spin (HS) state and the low spin (LS) state. We studied how the temperature dependence of the ordering process changes with the pressure, and we obtained a standard sequence of temperature dependences that has been found in changing other parameters such as strength of the ligand field (S. Miyashita et al., Prog. Theor. Phys. \textbf{114}, 719 (2005)). Various effects of pressure on the spin-crossover ordering process are examined from a unified point of view.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

ROSO: Improving Robotic Policy Inference via Synthetic Observations

In this paper, we propose the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to improve zero-shot performance of a pre-trained policy by altering observations during inference. Modern robotic systems, powered by advanced neural networks, have demonstrated remarkable capabilities on pre-trained tasks. However, generalizing and adapting to new objects and environments is challenging, and fine-tuning visuomotor policies is time-consuming. To overcome these issues we propose Robotic Policy Inference via Synthetic Observations (ROSO). ROSO uses stable diffusion to pre-process a robot's observation of novel objects during inference time to fit within its distribution of observations of the pre-trained policies. This novel paradigm allows us to transfer learned knowledge from known tasks to previously unseen scenarios, enhancing the robot's adaptability without requiring lengthy fine-tuning. Our experiments show that incorporating generative AI into robotic inference significantly improves successful outcomes, finishing up to 57% of tasks otherwise unsuccessful with the pre-trained policy.Comment: ACRA 2023 Ora

TICAM-1/TRIFはAct1を介してIL-17依存的な炎症を抑制する

熊本大

TICAM-1/TRIF associates with Act1 and suppresses IL-17 receptor–mediated inflammatory responses

TICAM-1 (also called TRIF) is the sole adaptor of TLR3 that recognizes double-stranded RNA. Here, we report that TICAM-1 is involved not only in TLR3 signaling but also in the cytokine receptor IL-17RA signaling. We found that TICAM-1 bound to IL-17R adaptor Act1 to inhibit the interaction between IL-17RA and Act1. Interestingly, TICAM-1 knockout promoted IL-17RA/Act1 interaction and increased IL-17A–mediated activation of NF-κB and MAP kinases, leading to enhanced expression of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines upon IL-17A stimulation. Moreover, Ticam-1 knockout augmented IL-17A–mediated CXCL1 and CXCL2 expression in vivo, resulting in accumulation of myeloid cells. Furthermore, Ticam-1 knockout enhanced delayed type hypersensitivity and exacerbated experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Ticam-1 knockout promoted accumulation of myeloid and lymphoid cells in the spinal cord of EAE-induced mice. Collectively, these data indicate that TICAM-1 inhibits the interaction between IL-17RA and Act1 and functions as a negative regulator in IL-17A–mediated inflammatory responses

Functional Differentiation of Memory Retrieval Network in Macaque Posterior Parietal Cortex

SummaryHuman fMRI studies revealed involvement of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) during memory retrieval. However, corresponding memory-related regions in macaque PPC have not been established. In this monkey fMRI study, comparisons of cortical activity during correct recognition of previously seen items and rejection of unseen items revealed two major PPC activation sites that were differentially characterized by a serial probe recognition paradigm: area PG/PGOp in inferior parietal lobule, along with the hippocampus, was more active for initial item retrieval, while area PEa/DIP in intraparietal sulcus was for the last item. Effective connectivity analyses revealed that connectivity from hippocampus to PG/PGOp, but not to PEa/DIP, increased during initial item retrieval. The two parietal areas with differential serial probe recognition profiles were embedded in two different subnetworks of the brain-wide retrieval-related regions. These functional dissociations in the macaque PPC imply the functional correspondence of retrieval-related PPC networks in macaques and humans

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Macaque Monkeys Performing Visually Guided Saccade Tasks Comparison of Cortical Eye Fields with Humans

AbstractThe frontal and parietal eye fields serve as functional landmarks of the primate brain, although their correspondences between humans and macaque monkeys remain unclear. We conducted fMRI at 4.7 T in monkeys performing visually-guided saccade tasks and compared brain activations with those in humans using identical paradigms. Among multiple parietal activations, the dorsal lateral intraparietal area in monkeys and an area in the posterior superior parietal lobule in humans exhibited the highest selectivity to saccade directions. In the frontal cortex, the selectivity was highest at the junction of the precentral and superior frontal sulci in humans and in the frontal eye field (FEF) in monkeys. BOLD activation peaks were also found in premotor areas (BA6) in monkeys, which suggests that the apparent discrepancy in location between putative human FEF (BA6, suggested by imaging studies) and monkey FEF (BA8, identified by microstimulation studies) partly arose from methodological differences

A Case of Rapid Progressive Kidney Dysfunction with Severely Calcified Stenotic Aorta

Coral reef aorta is rare type of atherosclerotic diseases with severe calcification in the visceral part of the aorta. We present a case of coral reef aorta with severe abdominal aortic stenosis in a 67-year-old man. The patient presented with hypertension, claudication, and rapid progression of renal dysfunction over several months. Angiography revealed a severely stenotic suprarenal abdominal aorta resulting in renal ischemia and dysfunction. In addition, his right kidney was completely atrophied. After open surgical repair of the stenotic aorta including renal artery reconstruction, renal function did not improve. There was stenotic anastomosis to the renal artery. After endovascular therapy to the stenotic anastomosis, renal function dramatically improved. Stenotic coral reef aorta may be the cause of kidney dysfunction. In addition, surgical complication of stenotic anastomosis may be successfully treated by endovascular therapy