The difficulty of the postural control task affects multi-muscle control during quiet standing.

The aim of this study was to compare the electromyographic (EMG) coherence between the lower limb and the core muscles when carrying out two postural tasks at different difficulty levels. EMG was recorded in 20 healthy male subjects while performing two independent quiet standing tasks. The first one involved a bipedal stance with the eyes open, while the second consisted of a dominant unipedal stance also with the eyes open. The obtained EMG signals were analysed by computing estimations of EMG-EMG coherence between muscle pairs, both singly (single-pair estimations) and combined (pooled estimations). Pooled and single coherence of anterior, posterior, core, antagonist and mixed pairs of muscles were significant in the 0-5 Hz frequency band. The results indicate that core and antagonist muscle groups, such as the anterior and posterior muscles, share low-frequency neural inputs (0-5 Hz) which could be responsible of the M-modes assembly. The core muscles could therefore provide the necessary synergy to maintain spine stability during the balancing exercise. Finally, differences in EMG-EMG coherence suggest that the muscle synergies formed during unipedal stance tasks are different from those established during bipedal stance.

Ultra-fast laser microprocessing of medical polymers for cell engineering applications.

Picosecond laser micromachining technology (PLM) has been employed as a tool for the fabrication of 3D structured substrates. These substrates have been used as supports in the in vitro study of the effect of substrate topography on cell behavior. Different micropatterns were PLM-generated on polystyrene (PS) and poly-L-lactide (PLLA) and employed to study cellular proliferation and morphology of breast cancer cells. The laser-induced microstructures included parallel lines of comparable width to that of a single cell (which in this case is roughly 20µm), and the fabrication of square-like compartments of a much larger area than a single cell (250,000µm(2)). The results obtained from this in vitro study showed that though the laser treatment altered substrate roughness, it did not noticeably affect the adhesion and proliferation of the breast cancer cells. However, pattern direction directly affected cell proliferation, leading to a guided growth of cell clusters along the pattern direction. When cultured in square-like compartments, cells remained confined inside these for eleven incubation days. According to these results, laser micromachining with ultra-short laser pulses is a suitable method to directly modify the cell microenvironment in order to induce a predefined cellular behavior and to study the effect of the physical microenvironment on cell proliferation.

Force normalization in paraplegics.

The principal aim of our study was the determination of the effectiveness of a standardized ratio, allometric scaling model and a gamma function model in normalizing the isometric torque data of spinal cord patients and healthy subjects. For this purpose we studied a sample of 21 healthy males and 23 spinal cord injury males. The experiment consisted of the measurement of the force of the upper limb movement executed by all the subjects. We also determined anthropometric variables with dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. The experimental data were analyzed with 3 force normalization methods. Our results indicate that the most important confounding variable was the fat free mass of the dominant upper limb (r>0.36, p<0.05). With the standardization by body mass and allometric scaling model, the normalized torque was influenced by body size variables. However, the normalized torque by the gamma function model was independent of body size measures. Paraplegics were weaker (p<0.05) in extension movements when the data were normalized by the gamma function model. In summary, this study shows that the gamma function model with fat free mass of the dominant upper limb was more effective than the standardized ratio in removing the influence of body size variables.

Effect of fatigue on the intra-cycle acceleration in front crawl swimming: a time-frequency analysis.

The present study analyzes the changes in acceleration produced by swimmers before and after fatiguing effort. The subjects (n = 15) performed a 25-m crawl series at maximum speed without fatigue, and a second series with fatigue. The data were registered with a synchronized system that consisted of a position transducer (1 kHz) and a video photogrametry (50 Hz). The acceleration (ms(-2)) was obtained by the derivative analysis of the variation of the position with time. The amplitude in the time domain was calculated with the root mean square (RMS); while the peak power (PP), the peak power frequency (PPF) and the spectrum area (SA) were calculated in the frequency domain with Fourier analysis. On the one hand, the results of the temporal domain show that the RMS change percentage between series was 67.5% (p < 0.001). On the other hand, PP, PPF, and SA show significant changes (p < 0.001). PP and SA were reduced by 63.1% and 59.5%, respectively. Our results show that the acceleration analysis of the swimmer with Fourier analysis permits a more precise understanding of which propulsive forces contribute to the swimmer performance before and after fatigue appears.

Bacterial protein patterning by micro-contact printing of PLL-g-PEG.

Biomimetic micro-patterned surfaces of three S-layer (fusion) proteins, wild type (SbpA), enhanced green fluorescence protein (SbpA-EGFP) and streptavidin (SbpA-STV), were built by microcontact printing of poly-L-lysine grafted polyethylene glycol (PLL-g-PEG). The functionality of the adsorbed proteins was studied with atomic force microscopy and fluorescence microscopy. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements showed that wild-type SbpA recrystallized on PLL-g-PEG free areas, while fluorescent properties of SbpA-EGFP and the interaction of SbpA-streptavidin heterotetramers with biotin were not affected due to the adsorption on the micro patterned substrates.

Surface electrical stimulation of the quadriceps femoris in patients affected by haemophilia A.

Eighteen sessions of surface electrical stimulation was applied to the quadriceps femoris of the left leg of ten male subjects affected by severe haemophilia A, while ten healthy subjects constituted the control group. The isometric strength, the electromyographic activity and the diameter of the rectus femoris were measured in both legs before and after a six-week treatment period. After the treatment, the people affected by haemophilia showed a gain in strength by 13.8% in the stimulated leg and by 17.1% in the non-stimulated one. No changes were detected in the electromyographic activity. On the contrary, the diameter of the rectus femoris of the stimulated leg increased in 24.34%, while no significant change was found in the nonelectrically stimulated leg. These results show for the first time that the application of electrical stimulation in haemophilic patients contributes to the gain and development of strength and trophism. The results also show that the surface electrical stimulation does not represent a threat to the patients' health, and that can be used for therapeutic purposes.

X-ray diffraction and foam film investigations of PC head group interaction in water/ethanol mixtures.

The influence of ethanol on single phospholipid monolayers at the water/air interface and in foam films has been investigated. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction investigations (GIXD) of Langmuir monolayers from 1,2-distearoyl-phosphatidylcholine (DSPC) spread on water subphases with different amounts of ethanol were performed. The thickness and free specific energy of formation of foam films stabilized by 1,2-dimyristoyl-phosphatidylcholine (DMPC) at different concentrations of ethanol in the film forming dispersions were measured. The GIXD investigations show that the tilt angle of the alkyl chains in the PC lipid monolayer decreases with increasing concentration of ethanol caused by a decrease of the diameter of the head groups. With increasing ethanol content of the solution also the thickness of the aqueous core of PC lipid foam films decreases. We assume that ethanol causes a decreasing probability for the formation of hydrogen bonds of water molecules to the PC head groups. The distinct difference between the effects of ethanol on lipid bilayers as described in the literature and on monolayers and foam films found in this study is discussed. Whereas PC monolayers at the water/air interface become unstable above 25 vol.% ethanol, the PC foam films are stable up to 50 vol.% ethanol. This is related to the decrease of the surface excess energy per lipid molecule by the interaction between the two film surfaces.