Mechanical forces affect all the tissues of our bodies. Experiments conducted mainly on cultured cells have established that altering these forces influences cell behaviors, including migration, differentiation, apoptosis, and proliferation [1, 2]. The transcriptional coactivator YAP has been identified as a nuclear relay of mechanical signals, but the molecular mechanisms that lead to YAP acti...

An asymptotic formula has been obtained for the axial tension in nonlinear viscoelastic fibers undergoing inhomogeneous stretch. The formula, which is valid to within an error of the fourth order in diameter, expresses the tension per unit cross-sectional area in terms of the history of the local axial stretch and its first two derivatives with respect to distance along the fiber axis. The theo...

PURPOSE To study the biomechanical characteristics (percent stretch, stiffness, and ultimate load) of 2 tendon-prosthesis techniques used to connect the proximal tendon stump to silicone active tendon implants used in reconstruction of flexor tendons. METHODS We evaluated percent stretch following cyclic loading and at failure, stiffness during load to failure, and ultimate load of 16 tendon-...

Mechanical force is known to modulate the activity of the Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling cascade. However, the effect of mechanical stresses on JNK signaling activation has previously only been analyzed by in vitro detection methods. It still remains unknown how living cells activate the JNK signaling cascade in response to mechanical stress and what its functions are in stretched cells....

Cell culture systems are often static and are therefore nonphysiological. In vivo, many cells are exposed to dynamic surroundings that stimulate cellular responses in a process known as mechanotransduction. To recreate this environment, stretchable cell culture substrate systems have been developed, however, these systems are limited by being macroscopic and low throughput. We have developed a ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate in women older than 60 whether aortic stiffness or pulse pressure (PP) is associated with selected procoagulant or anticoagulant factors and to examine whether pulsatile stretch influences these factors in human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in vitro. METHODS AND RESULTS Aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) and carotid PP were studied in 123 apparently healthy post...

The mechanical forces acting on lung parenchyma during (mechanical) ventilation and its (patho)physiological consequences are currently under intense scrutiny. Several in vivo and cell culture models have been developed to study the pulmonary responses to mechanical stretch. While providing extremely useful information, these models do also suffer from limitations in being either too complex fo...

It has been known for many years that stimulation of the motor nerves to vertebrate muscle spindles leads to an increase in the frequency of discharge of the receptor afferent when the muscle is at a constant length (Matthews, 1933; Leksell, 1945; Kuffler, Hunt & Quilliam, 1951). Recently it has been found in muscle-spindle primary endings of cat and rabbit (Matthews, 1962; Emonet-Denand, Lapor...

background: human body posture influences on his/her physiological functions. the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of forward shoulder correction on pulmonary function of elementary female students. methods: subjects of this quasi-experimental research were two groups (n=20) of students with normal posture (np) and forward shoulder posture(fsp)  which is divided randomly into...