Other Medical Sciences Commons^™

Modulation Of The Cardiomyocyte Hypertrophic Responses To Endothelin-1 By Adipocytes, Suresh Chandra Bairwa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Leptin and adiponectin are the adipokines that are shown to exert pro-hypertrophic and anti-hypertrophic effects respectively, in cardiomyocytes. We sought to determine the direct interaction between the adipocytes and cardiomyocytes during endothelin-1 (ET-1)-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and determine the role of leptin and adiponectin.

The adipose tissue conditioned medium (ACM) inhibited the ET-1-induced hypertrophy in a concentration-dependent manner and this anti-hypertrophic effect was more potent or reversed in the presence of leptin receptor antagonist (LRA; 0.1 nM) or adiponectin receptor-1 antibody (ARA; 100 ng/mL), respectively. ACM from heart failure rats induced by coronary artery ligation or obese rats did not mitigate …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Methacrylated Hyaluronan-Based Hydrogels For Tissue Engineering, Keegan Bradley Compton

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Polymers have revolutionized the field of tissue engineering due to the countless possibilities of scaffolds that can be constructed from such a material. Through conjugation of other functional groups onto a polymer backbone, the mechanical properties of polymers can be controlled and has the ability to span a wide range of strengths, allowing for application in multiple tissue environments. One such polymer, hyaluronic acid (HA), is a natural polysaccharide found most abundantly in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of connective tissues with structural, lubricating, and wound healing functions in the human body; for this reason, HA has great potential for utilization …

Dispositional Optimism: Modeling Cardiovascular Disease Mortality With Traditional Risk Factors And A Psychosocial Personality Trait, Kiana Ramisi Luckett Robinson

Dissertations

Despite increased awareness of clinical risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), heart disease remains a physical and economic burden to African Americans. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between dispositional optimism, a psychosocial personality trait, and CVD mortality, based on immediate cause of death. A cross-sectional design was used to examine the predictive value of dispositional optimism in CVD mortality concomitant with traditional CVD risk factors. The traditional CVD risk factors of interest consisted of body mass index, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, total cholesterol, and C-reactive protein. Also, aggregated mortality data for optimists …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Plantar Weight Distribution And The Condition Of Osteoarthritic Knees During Quiet Standing, Brian Joseph Sutterer

Graduate Theses - Biology & Biomedical Engineering

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a damaging disease that commonly affects the knee and can impact function of the lower limb. This study examined how plantar weight distribution is related to the changes in knee alignment and various types of joint damage in patients with OA. A force mat was used to measure plantar weight distribution on 37 patients with knee OA, and the internal condition of the knee was evaluated during surgery. Analysis showed a relationship between medial plantar weight distribution and an increase in knee alignment angle (0.20, p < 0.001). For the damage models, an indirect relationship was found between medial weight distribution and ACL damage (-0.14, p=0.029). No relationship was found for the other types of OA damage. It is reasonable to believe they do exist, however. This study found a connection between weight distribution and alignment, and previous research has shown one between alignment and OA.

Impact Testing Of Youth-Level Helmets Versus College-Level Helmets, Nicole Hermann

Industrial Technology and Packaging

With so many studies being conducted on professional football players regarding concussions and other related brain injuries, it’s amazing that such an important demographic has been missed. While NFL players are just as subjected to serious injuries as anyone else or even more so, it is important to remember that these players are outfitted, in most cases, with top-of-the-line equipment -- especially their helmets. If the focus is shifted to a younger demographic, youth football players in middle school and high school, the equipment is far less advanced and in a vast majority of cases, has been previously used by …

Does The Preparticipation Examination Aid In Identifying Future Risk Of Concussion?, Kassandra E. Johns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Context: A pre-participation examination (PPE) has become standard practice among the athletic community. This examination commonly includes a multifaceted baseline concussion assessment and an injury history survey. Recent evidence suggests that neuropsychological testing can aid in predicting individuals at an increased risk of lower extremity injury. However, no known previous study has investigated the relationship between neuropsychological function and potential risk of sustaining a concussion.

Objective: This study sought to identify a relationship between components of a standard PPE and an elevated risk of concussion.

Design: All data was extracted from the institution concussion database.

Setting: A large university in …

An Investigation Of Nurbs-Based Deformable Image Registration, Travis J. Jacobson

Theses and Dissertations

Deformable image registration (DIR) is an essential tool in medical image processing. It provides a means to combine image datasets, allowing for intra-subject, inter-subject, multi-modality, and multi-instance analysis, as well as motion detection and compensation. One of the most popular DIR algorithms models the displacement vector field (DVF) as B-splines, a sum of piecewise polynomials with coefficients that enable local shape control. B-splines have many advantageous properties in the context of DIR, but they often struggle to adequately model steep local gradients and discontinuities. This dissertation addresses that limitation by proposing the replacement of conventional B-splines with a generalized formulation …

Effects Of Cpla-2 On The Migration And Proliferation Of Human Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells And The 2-D Migratory Patterns Of Tropomyosin In Femoral And Abdominal Aorta Tissue, Jaimeson Thomas Powell

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract 1: Platelet derived growth factor BB (PDGF BB) has an important influence on smooth muscle cell proliferation in restenosis and atherosclerosis. Our understanding of different signal transduction pathways involved in the response of smooth muscle cells to PDGF BB is potentially significant for understanding and manipulating these processes. Prior studies have demonstrated a crucial activation of cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) in smooth muscle cells to PDGF BB with the production of arachidonic acid and prostaglandin E2. In these studies we investigated the role for another PLA2, calcium-independent PLA2 (iPLA2) in comparison to cPLA2 on smooth muscle cell migration and …

The Role Of Microrna In Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B-Induced Inflammation And Acute Lung Injury, Roshni Rao

Theses and Dissertations

Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) is a potent activator of the Vβ8+T-cells leading to the proliferation of nearly 30% of the T-cell pool. As a consequence, excessive amounts of cytokine mediators are released leading to extensive tissue damage and sometimes toxic shock and death. Due to the ease with which SEB can be aerosolized anddisseminated, it is considered a biological weapon. In the current study, we investigated the pro-inflammatory effects of SEB in two mouse models of acute inflammatory lung injury. Specifically, while inflammatory cues are known to elicit changes in key transcriptional factors and gene expression, we explored for the …

Immobilizing Mutation In An Unconventional Myosin15a Affects Not Only The Structure Of Mechanosensory Stereocilia In The Inner Ear Hair Cells But Also Their Ionic Conductances, Diana Syam

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

In the inner and outer hair cells (OHCs) of the inner ear, an unconventional myosin 15a localizes at the tips of mechanosensory stereocilia and plays an important role in forming and maintaining their normal structure. A missense mutation makes the motor domain of myosin 15a dysfunctional and is responsible for the congenital deafness DFNB3 in humans and deafness and vestibular defects in Shaker-2 (Sh2) mouse model. All hair cells of homozygous Shaker-2 mice (Myo15^sh2/sh2) have abnormally short stereocilia, but, only stereocilia of Myo15^sh2/sh2OHCs start to degenerate after the first few days of postnatal development …