INTRODUCTION Low back pain (LBP) is a common complaint among the general population with a subgroup developing chronic and disabling symptoms generating large societal costs. Recurrences and functional limitations can be minimized with appropriate conservative management, including medications, physical therapy modalities, exercise and patient education. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study w...

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) binding protein (LBP) is a key serum factor that mediates LPS activation of mononuclear cells. In the presence of LBP, 1/1,000 the concentration of LPS is sufficient to activate peripheral blood monocytes. Previous studies with Kupffer cells have shown a variable effect of serum on LPS activation of these cells and led to the conclusion that, unlike extrahepatic mononuc...

OBJECTIVES Quantitative sensory testing (QST) has been used to elucidate the peripheral and central mechanisms that underlie changes in pain sensitivity associated with low back pain (LBP). However, it remains unclear to what degree peripheral and central changes contribute to the generation and maintenance of LBP. The aim of this study was to compare thermal pain sensitivity, measured using QS...

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) binding protein (LBP) is an acute-phase protein that enhances the responsiveness of immune cells to LPS by virtue of its capacity to transfer LPS to CD14. To determine the role of LBP in the innate immune response to peritonitis, LBP gene-deficient (LBP(-/-)) and normal wild-type mice were intraperitoneally infected with Escherichia coli, the most common causative patho...

Low back pain (LBP) is also one of the most common medical conditions in athletes. There is little doubt that patients with LBP use from their body differently than pain free individuals. The purpose of this review was to investigate changes in motor control which may be present in athletes with LBP. The search strategy for this review consisted of an electronic database search of full text in ...

In this paper, we propose a novel face recognition technique based on discrete wavelet transform and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) with adapted threshold to recognize avatar faces in different virtual worlds. The original LBP operator mainly thresholds pixels in a specific predetermined window based on the gray value of the central pixel of that window. As a result the LBP operator becomes more se...

Many adolescent athletes experience low back pain (LBP). Its causative factors include lower limb muscle tightness and hip-spine incoordination. Hip-spine coordination [or lumbopelvic rhythm, LPR] can be used to assess lower-limb and spine functions. We assessed the presence/absence of LBP in adolescent soccer players before and after a six-month period and divided them into four groups: no LBP...

Lumbar disc herniation is one of the most common spinal degenerative disorders which may lead to low back pain (LBP) and radicular leg pain. However, it remains difficult to diagnose a degenerative herniated disc as the LBP generator in clinical practice. The purpose of this study is to explore the characteristic changes of a herniated disc causing LBP on MRI and to clarify the underlying role ...

In the management of clinical low back pain (LBP), actual damage to lower back areas such as muscles, intervertebral discs etc. are normally targeted for therapy. However, LBP may involve not only sensory pain, but also underlying affective pain which may also play an important role overall in painful events. Therefore we hypothesized that visualization of a painful event may trigger painful me...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of asymptomatic back muscle weakness and spinal deformity on low back pain (LBP). METHODS Sixty healthy subjects without LBP participated in this study. Radiography and an isokinetic/isometric dynamometer were used to respectively measure spinal scoliosis/lordosis and the strength of the trunk flexors/extensors. After 2 years, 48 subjects visited the hospi...