Medical Biophysics Commons^™

Ai-Driven Segmentation And Volumetric Response Modeling Of Liver Regions To Radiotherapy, Aashish Chandra Gupta

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

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In liver-directed radiotherapy (RT), liver regions receiving higher doses typically undergo atrophy while contralateral/adjacent lower-dose regions may exhibit compensatory hypertrophy through regeneration of healthy tissue. Optimizing the RT plan to promote regional hypertrophy while minimizing the risk of developing atrophy has the potential to enhance post-RT liver function and long-term survivorship. However, current clinical practice largely relies on global liver dose-volume metrics during RT-planning, which may obscure favorable dose-response correlation and limit actionable guidance for clinicians. Therefore, we hypothesized that post-RT regional liver response is governed by a combination of region-specific dose-volume and patient clinical features, and that these responses …

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Intermembrane Coupling Between Bcl-Xl And The Ip3 Receptor Supports Local Ca2+ Transfer At Er-Mitochondrial Contacts, Arijita Ghosh, David Weaver, Chi Li, György Hajnóczky

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

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Bcl-xL, an anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family protein, engages laterally with Bak/Bax in the outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM) to inhibit apoptosis and interacts with the IP₃ receptor Ca²⁺ channels (IP3Rs) in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane to control Ca²⁺ release. It is unknown if OMM-localized Bcl-xL can also interact in trans with IP3Rs at ER-mitochondrial contacts to form a tethering complex that supports IP3R-mediated local Ca²⁺ transfer from ER to mitochondria. We establish that IP3R-mitochondria Ca²⁺ signal propagation depends on Bcl-xL. By targeting Bcl-xL specifically to different subcellular compartments, we find that OMM-localized Bcl-xL increases the efficacy …

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The Physics And Biology Of High-Risk Falls: Biomechanical Analysis And Physics Assists In Understanding Why The Threshold For High-Risk Was Lowered To 10 Feet, James Espinosa, Alan Lucerna

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

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Background: Recent revisions to the National Guideline for the Field Triage of Injured Patients lowered the high-risk fall threshold from >20 feet  to >10 feet for all ages. Guideline changes are multifactorial and typically reflect epidemiologic registry data, injury severity trends, and systems-level performance feedback. However, biomechanical analysis assists in understanding the importance of the change.

Objective: To demonstrate that a 10-foot fall generates sufficient kinetic energy and deceleration forces to exceed structural tolerance thresholds in multiple human tissues, and to show that fundamental physics independently supports the recent trauma protocol change.

Methods: Application of gravitational motion equations (v = …

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Analyzer-Less X-Ray Interferometry With Super-Resolution Methods, Murtuza S. Taqi

LSU Master's Theses

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X-ray interferometry provides valuable information on attenuation, small-angle scattering, and differential phase contrast. This multi-modal contrast can aid in many clinical applications, such as lung diseases and breast cancer. However, standard inter- ferometry has an analyzer grating that can increase the dose requirement to maintain the same image quality as a standard X-ray. We propose the use of super-resolution methods for X-ray grating interferometry without an analyzer, with detectors that fail to meet the Nyquist sampling rate needed for traditional image recovery algorithms. Detector phase- steps are used to nominally recover the sampling and iteratively recover the visibility and the …

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Health Effects Of Cadmium And Manganese Exposure On Luteinizing Hormone Levels: A Pilot Study Of Female Infertility, Shatha F. Alhous, Anees A. Al-Hamzawi, Murtadha Sh. Aswood

Al-Bahir

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Female infertility occurs for many reasons, some unknown. Exposure to heavy metals is a risk factor that negatively impacts on female reproductive system. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of cadmium Cd and manganese Mn on luteinizing hormone LH levels for females’ infertility. This study included a healthy group (n = 20), primary infertile females (n = 40), and secondary infertile females (n = 20) collected from Al-Zahraa hospital in Najaf center, Iraq. The Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) was used to measure the cadmium and manganese concentrations and LH levels were measured by a Maglumi 800 from Snibe …

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Clinical Validation Of Perfusion Imaging With Pulmonary Function Test Data Using Voronoi-Based Discretization, Jorge Cisneros, Caleb J. Herrera, Yi-Kuan Liu, Lisa V. Du, Yevgeniy Vinogradskiy, Richard Castillo, Girish Nair, Edward Castillo

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

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Objective.Accurate lung function assessment is essential for diagnosing and managing diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, pulmonary emboli, and lung cancer. Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) provides valuable 3D functional imaging of ventilation and perfusion, but is limited by low spatial resolution, availability, additional radiation, and cost. Alternative methods, including CT-based perfusion (CT-P) and deep learning models, require large datasets to validate results that are often scarce. Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) offer rapid and noninvasive global lung function measures and are clinically widely used. While ventilation correlates well with PFTs, perfusion imaging presents challenges due to complex blood flow and …

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Relationships Between Clinical Symptom Scales And Eeg Biomarkers In Oud Patients, Jess Delange, Benjamin M. Latey, John Glinski, Braden Ashcraft, Jasmine Pannu, Cassidy Beatty, Lauren Knudson, Benjamin Chafetz, Bryan Fugal, Patrick Tanner Brain, N P. Griffin, Christopher Gowans, Amanda Brandaris, Amanda Page, Blake D. Harris, Sophia Delgado, Lorissa Thorpe, Kyle Bills, Andrew Payne

Annual Research Symposium

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This poster examines the relationship between clinical symptom scales and electroencephalographic (EEG) biomarkers in patients with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Participants from inpatient substance use treatment facilities completed validated mental health and withdrawal assessments, including the COWS, PHQ-9, HAM-A, and ASRS followed by cognitive testing while undergoing 19-lead EEG recording.

Preliminary findings indicate that synthetic opioid use is associated with prolonged P300 response latency across brain regions, suggesting measurable neurophysiologic differences tied to substance type and addiction severity. The study explores how EEG metrics may complement subjective symptom reporting to provide more objective markers of addiction status, co-morbid psychiatric burden, …

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Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Inhibition Improves Fetal Growth In A Rat Model Of Preeclampsia, Laura E. Coats, Nathan Campbell, Dylan Solise, Gabrielle M. Chamoun, Adam Z. Rawls, Alexandra Demesa, Ty Turner, Baoying Zheng, Barbara T. Alexander, Babbette Lamarca

Physiology & Biophysics

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Introduction

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is elevated 2-fold in women with preeclampsia. Preclinical investigation shows TNF-α blockade reduces maternal blood pressure in reduced uterine perfusion pressure (RUPP) rats and attenuates the reduction in fetal weight. However, the benefits versus harms of this therapy on fetal growth and underlying pathogenesis are unknown. Thus, this study tested the hypothesis that maternal treatment with the soluble TNF-α inhibitor Etanercept (Etan) during late gestation improves placental perfusion, nutrient transport, and morphology, thereby improving fetal growth in the RUPP model of preeclampsia compared with Sham controls. We further …

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Investigation Into The A/Ss Of Cervical Cancer And Its Effects On Tumor Control Probability In Radiation Therapy, Cameron Thayer-Freeman

Theses and Dissertations--Radiation Medicine

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The standard of care for locally advanced cervical cancer is chemoradiation, consisting of conventional external beam therapy (EBT) followed by a boost of high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy. These two radiation treatments will illicit different degrees of biological response depending on the tissue in question, and quantifying the overall effect the combined treatments will have require some form of biological modeling. The linear quadratic (LQ) model of cell survival is the most widely used radiobiological model in clinics across the nation.

It is quantified by the parameters a and ß, which model how radiation generates lethal damage in a population …

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