ABSTRACT
Neuromodulation techniques modify the activity of the central or peripheral nervous system. Spinal cord stimulation is a reversible and minimally invasive treatment whose efficacy and cost effectiveness are recognized for the treatment of chronic neuropathic pain or ischemic pain. Spinal cord stimulation is not the option of last resort and should be considered among other options before prescribing long-term opioids or considering reoperation. The selection and regular follow-up of patients are crucial to the success of the therapy.
Subject(s)
Chronic Pain/therapy , Pain Management/methods , Spinal Cord Stimulation , Chronic Pain/economics , Cost-Benefit Analysis , Electrodes, Implanted/economics , Epidural Space , Humans , Neuralgia/economics , Neuralgia/therapy , Pain Management/economics , Patient Selection , Spinal Cord , Spinal Cord Stimulation/economicsABSTRACT
Using angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy we investigate the electronic valence band structure of the Si(331)-(12 × 1) surface reconstruction for which we recently proposed a structural model containing silicon pentamers as elementary structural building blocks. We find that this surface, reported to be metallic in a previous study, shows a clear band gap at the Fermi energy, indicating semiconducting behavior. An occupied surface state, presumably containing several spectral components, is found centered at - 0.6 eV exhibiting a flat energy dispersion. These results are confirmed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy and are consistent with recent first-principles calculations for our structural model.
