Minerals in the Foods Eaten by Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla beringei)

Minerals are critical to an individual’s health and fitness, and yet little is known about mineral nutrition and requirements in free-ranging primates. We estimated the mineral content of foods consumed by mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. Mountain gorillas acquire the majority of their minerals from herbaceous leaves, which constitute the bulk of their diet. However, less commonly eaten foods were sometimes found to be higher in specific minerals, suggesting their potential importance. A principal component analysis demonstrated little correlation among minerals in food items, which further suggests that mountain gorillas might increase dietary diversity to obtain a full complement of minerals in their diet. Future work is needed to examine the bioavailability of minerals to mountain gorillas in order to better understand their intake in relation to estimated needs and the consequences of suboptimal mineral balance in gorilla foods

Evaluation of effectiveness and safety of the CorPath GRX robotic system in endovascular embolization procedures of cerebral aneurysms.

BACKGROUND Robotic-assisted neurointervention was recently introduced, with implications that it could be used to treat neurovascular diseases. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the robotic-assisted platform CorPath GRX for treating cerebral aneurysms. METHODS This prospective, international, multicenter study enrolled patients with brain aneurysms that required endovascular coiling and/or stent-assisted coiling. The primary effectiveness endpoint was defined as successful completion of the robotic-assisted endovascular procedure without any unplanned conversion to manual treatment with guidewire or microcatheter navigation, embolization coil(s) or intracranial stent(s) deployment, or an inability to navigate vessel anatomy. The primary safety endpoint included intraprocedural and periprocedural events. RESULTS The study enrolled 117 patients (74.4% female) with mean age of 56.6 years from 10 international sites,. Headache was the most common presenting symptom in 40/117 (34.2%) subjects. Internal carotid artery was the most common location (34/122, 27.9%), and the mean aneurysm height and neck width were 5.7±2.6 mm and 3.5±1.4 mm, respectively. The overall procedure time was 117.3±47.3 min with 59.4±32.6 min robotic procedure time. Primary effectiveness was achieved in 110/117 (94%) subjects with seven subjects requiring conversion to manual for procedure completion. Only four primary safety events were recorded with two intraprocedural aneurysm ruptures and two strokes. A Raymond-Roy Classification Scale score of 1 was achieved in 71/110 (64.5%) subjects, and all subjects were discharged with a modified Rankin Scale score of ≤2. CONCLUSIONS This first-of-its-kind robotic-assisted neurovascular trial demonstrates the effectiveness and safety of the CorPath GRX System for endovascular embolization of cerebral aneurysm procedures. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER NCT04236856

How patient-specific do internal carotid artery inflow rates need to be for computational fluid dynamics of cerebral aneurysms?

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a popular tool for studying 'patient-specific' blood flow dynamics in cerebral aneurysms; however, rarely are the inflow boundary conditions patient-specific. We aimed to test the impact of widespread reliance on generalized inflow rates

Mean ratios of minerals in staple foods eaten by Bwindi Mountain gorillas, weighted by daily intake (measured in g) [40].

<p>Staple foods considered accounted for 80% of total diet <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0112117#pone.0112117-Reiner1" target="_blank">[40]</a>.</p><p>Mean ratios of minerals in staple foods eaten by Bwindi Mountain gorillas, weighted by daily intake (measured in g) <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0112117#pone.0112117-Reiner1" target="_blank">[40]</a>.</p

Biplot showing the first two loadings of the principal component analysis of all mineral values in samples analyzed.

<p>Food items grouped by color.</p

Comparisons of mean mineral composition in gorilla food items at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

<p>Comparisons of mean mineral composition in gorilla food items at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.</p

Mineral content of leaves consumed by gorillas at BINP compared to leaves consumed by wild primates at other research sites.

<p>Mineral content of leaves consumed by gorillas at BINP compared to leaves consumed by wild primates at other research sites.</p

Comparison of mineral composition of food items between <i>Gorilla beringei</i> and <i>Gorilla gorilla</i>[16]¹.

1<p>*, denotes significantly higher values (<i>P<0.05</i>) as determined by Mann-Whitney U tests of significance. Samples with an n<2 were excluded from analysis.</p><p>Comparison of mineral composition of food items between <i>Gorilla beringei</i> and <i>Gorilla gorilla</i><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0112117#pone.0112117-Calvert1" target="_blank">[16]</a>^{<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0112117#nt104" target="_blank">1</a>}.</p