Margas W, Mahmoud S, Ruiz-Velasco V. Muscarinic acetylcholine receptor modulation of Mu ( ) opioid receptors in adult rat sphenopalatine ganglion neurons. J Neurophysiol 103: 172–182, 2010. First published November 4, 2009; doi:10.1152/jn.00295.2009. The sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) neurons represent the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system involved in controlling cerebral bl...

The study aimed to assess the effects of Sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) acupuncture on nasal ventilation function and autonomic nervous system in health volunteers. 39 healthy subjects were randomly assigned to either active SPG acupuncture group (AA group) or sham-SPG acupuncture group (SA group). All subjects were assessed for self-reported nasal ventilation, nasal patency (nasal airway resist...

BACKGROUND Bariatric procedures provide an effective means of short term weight loss and sustained weight control for the morbidly obese. The effect of bariatric procedures on smoking habit in obese subjects is not well known. Therefore, we examined the short term effect of bariatric surgery on smoking habit of severe obese patients up to 12 months from the intervention. PATIENTS AND METHODS ...

pou5f1, also known as Oct4, is required to establish the pluripotent cell population necessary for embryogenesis in mouse. Additional roles during development, including endoderm formation, have been proposed. In zebrafish, the zygotic pou5f1/pou2 mutant spiel ohne grenzen (spg) shows neural plate patterning defects and reduced endoderm at the tailbud stage. To investigate the function of mater...

The generalized spanning tree or group Steiner problem (GSP) is a generalization of the Steiner problem in graphs (SPG): one requires a tree spanning (at least) one vertex of each subset, given in a family of vertex subsets, while minimizing the sum of the corresponding edge costs. Specialized solution procedures have been developed for this problem. In this paper we investigate the performance...

background: serologic screening of gastric cancer (gc) by serum pepsinogens (spg) levels and helicobacter pylori (hp) sero-status, though highly informative, has provided heterogeneous results. here, we have evaluated the modifying effects of demographic factors on the risk impact of hp sero-status/spg levels in gastric cancer, with particular emphasis on age. methods: a cross-sectional study w...

puncture headache (PDPH) with great interest. The author has reviewed the literature and has very thoroughly discussed the diagnosis, risk factors, pathophysiology, prevention, and treatment of PDPH. In this letter, we want to mention another simple technique that can be performed at the bedside or in the outpatient department and is effective at relieving PDPH. The procedure is known as transn...

OBJECTIVE To determine if repetitive sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) blocks with 0.5% bupivacaine delivered through the Tx360(®) are superior in reducing pain associated with chronic migraine (CM) compared with saline. BACKGROUND The SPG is a small concentrated structure of neuronal tissue that resides within the pterygopalatine fossa (PPF) in close proximity to the sphenopalatine foramen and i...

Let G = (V,E) be a connected undirected graph, where V is the set of nodes and E denotes the set of edges. Given a non-negative weight function w : E → IR+ associated with its edges and a subset X ⊆ V of terminal nodes, the Steiner problem in graphs (SPG) consists in finding a minimum weighted connected subtree of G spanning all terminal nodes in X . The solution of SPG is a Steiner minimum tre...