The risk of low back pain resulted from cyclic loadings is greater than that resulted from prolonged static postures. Disk degeneration results in degradation of disk solid structures and decrease of water contents, which is caused by activation of matrix digestive enzymes. The mechanical responses resulted from internal solid-fluid interactions of degenerative disks to cyclic loadings are not ...

STUDY DESIGN We conducted intradiscal pressure measurements with one volunteer performing various activities normally found in daily life, sports, and spinal therapy. OBJECTIVES The goal of this study was to measure intradiscal pressure to complement earlier data from Nachemson with dynamic and long-term measurements over a broad range of activities. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Loading of th...

This study assessed the impact and modification of intradiscal, intraforaminal, epidural and intramuscular swine injection of a new material, Discogel(®)- radiopaque gelified ethanol- recently introduced for the mini-invasive treatment of herniated disc. Discogel(®) is a sterile viscous solution containing ethyl alcohol, cellulose derivative product, added to a radio-opaque element, tungsten. T...

PURPOSE To study cone photoreceptor structure and function associated with mutations in the second intradiscal loop region of peripherin/RDS. METHODS High-resolution macular images were obtained with adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy and spectral domain optical coherence tomography in four patients with peripherin/RDS mutations and 27 age-similar healthy subjects. Measures of reti...

BACKGROUND Discogenic pain is an important cause of low back pain (LBP). We have developed a pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) technique, using Diskit II needles (NeuroTherm, Middleton, MA, USA) placed centrally in the disk, for applying radiofrequency current in the disc (Intradiscal PRF method). OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of this intradiscal pulsed radiofreq...

We concluded previously from mutagenesis in the intradiscal domain of bovine rhodopsin that the formation of a tertiary structure comprising the N-terminal tail and the three polypeptide loops is essential to the in vivo assembly of the functional rhodopsin. We now report on more comprehensive mutagenic studies in the intradiscal domain to determine more precisely the requirement for the format...

BACKGROUND Loads acting on scoliotic spines are thought to be asymmetric and involved in progression of the scoliotic deformity; abnormal loading patterns lead to changes in bone and disc cell activity and hence to vertebral body and disc wedging. At present however there are no direct measurements of intradiscal stresses or pressures in scoliotic spines. The aim of this study was to obtain qua...

A previous study of the retinitis pigmentosa mutation L125R and two designed mutations at this site, L125A and L125F, showed that these mutations cause partial or total misfolding of the opsins expressed in COS cells from the corresponding mutant opsin genes. We now report on expression and characterization of the opsins from the following retinitis pigmentosa mutants in the transmembrane domai...