Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is among the most important of the family of musculoskeletal disorders caused by chronic peripheral nerve compression. Despite the large body of research in many disciplinary areas aimed at reducing CTS incidence and/or severity, means for objective characterization of the biomechanical insult directly responsible for the disorder have received little attention.In this research, anatomical image-based human carpal tunnel finite element (FE) models were constructed to enable study of median nerve mechanical insult. The formulation included largedeformation multi-body contact between the nerve, the nine digital flexor tendons, and the carpal tunnel boundary. These contact engagements were addressed simultaneously with nerve and tendon fluid-structural interaction (FSI) with the synovial fluid within the carpal tunnel. The effects of pertinent physical parameters on median nerve stress were explored. The results suggest that median nerve stresses due to direct structural contact are typically far higher than those from fluid pressure.
The present study examined the analgesic effects of slow-releasing bupivacaine from hydrogel on chronic arthritic pain in rats. Osteoarthritis (OA) was induced by monosodium iodoacetate (MIA) injection into the right knee joint. Hydrogel (HG: 20, 30, and 50 μL) and temperature-sensitive hydrogel containing bupivacaine (T-gel: 20, 30, and 50 μL) were injected intra-articularly 14 days after MIA injection. Behavioral tests were conducted. The rats showed a significant decrease in weight load and paw withdrawal threshold (PWT). Intra-articular 0.5% bupivacaine (10 and 20 μL) significantly reversed MIA-induced decreased PWT, with no effect on weight load. In normal rats, hydrogel did not produce significant changes in PWT but at 30 and 50 μL slightly decreased weight bearing; T-gel did not cause any changes in both the weight load and PWT. In OA rats, T-gel at 20 μL had a significant analgesic effect for 2 days, even though T-gel at 50 μL further reduced the weight load, demonstrating that intra-articular T-gel (20 μL) has long-lasting analgesic effects in OA rats. Thus, T-gel designed to deliver analgesics into the joint cavity could be an effective therapeutic tool in the clinical setting.
This study was performed to investigate whether an intra-articular injection of transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) receptor agonist, resiniferatoxin (RTX) would alleviate behavioral signs of arthritic pain in a rat model of osteoarthritis (OA). We also sought to determine the effect of RTX treatment on calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) expression in the spinal cord. Knee joint inflammation was induced by intra-articular injection of monosodium iodoacetate (MIA, 8 mg/50 µl) and weight bearing percentage on right and left hindpaws during walking, paw withdrawal threshold to mechanical stimulation, and paw withdrawal latency to heat were measured to evaluate pain behavior. Intra-articular administration of RTX (0.03, 0.003 and 0.0003%) at 2 weeks after the induction of knee joint inflammation significantly improved reduction of weight bearing on the ipsilateral hindlimb and increased paw withdrawal sensitivity to mechanical and heat stimuli. The reduction of pain behavior persisted for 3~10 days according to each behavioral test. The MIA-induced increase in CGRP immunoreactivity in the spinal cord was decreased by RTX treatment in a dose-dependent manner. The present study demonstrated that a single intra-articular administration of RTX reduced pain behaviors for a relatively long time in an experimental model of OA and could normalize OA-associated changes in peptide expression in the spinal cord.
A biomechanical test is a good evaluation method that describes the structural, functional, and pathological differences in the bones, such as osteoporosis and fracture. The tensile test, compression test, and bending test are generally performed to evaluate the elastic modulus of the bone using mice. In particular, the femoral head compression test is mainly used for verifying the osteoporosis change of the femoral neck. This study conducted bone mineral density analysis using in vivo microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) to observe changes in osteoporosis over time. It proposed a method of identifying the elastic modulus of the femur in the normal group (CON group) and the osteoporotic group (OVX group) through finite element analysis based on the femoral head compression test and also conducted a comparative analysis of the results. Through the femoral head compression test, it was verified that the CON group's ultimate and yield loads were significantly higher than those of the OVX group. It was considered that this result was caused by the fact that the bone mineral density change by osteoporosis occurred in the proximal end more often than in the femur diaphysis. However, the elastic modulus derived from the finite element analysis showed no significant difference between the two groups.
This study proposed a way to design femur fracture fixation plates made of shape memory alloy based on computed tomography (CT) images of Korean cadaveric femurs. To this end, 3 major design factors of femur fracture fixation plates (circumference angle, thickness, and inner diameter) were selected based on the contact pressure when a femur fracture fixation plate was applied to a cylinder model using the Taguchi method. Then, the effects of the design factors were analyzed. It was shown that the design factors were statistically significant at a level of p = 0.05 concerning the inner diameter and the thickness. The factors affecting the contact pressure were inner diameter, thickness, and circumference angle, in that order. Particularly, in the condition of Case 9 (inner diameter 27 mm, thickness 2.4 mm, and circumference angle 270°), the max. average contact pressure was 21.721 MPa, while the min. average contact pressure was 3.118 MPa in Case 10 (inner diameter 29 mm, thickness 2.0 mm, and circumference angle 210°). When the femur fracture fixation plate was applied to the cylinder model, the displacement due to external sliding and pulling forces was analyzed. As a result, the displacement in the sliding condition was at max. 3.75 times greater than that in the pulling condition, which indicated that the cohesion strength between the femur fracture fixation plate and the cylinder model was likely to be greater in the pulling condition. When a human femur model was applied, the max. average contact pressure was 10.76 MPa, which was lower than the yield strength of a human femur (108 MPa). In addition, the analysis of the rib behaviors of the femur fracture fixation plate in relation to the recovery effect of the shape memory alloy showed that the rib behaviors varied depending on the arbitrarily curved shapes of the femur sections.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.