The present study was undertaken to determine whether near-infrared spectroscopy can be used to noninvasively assess skeletal muscle oxygenation in patients with heart failure. The difference between light absorption at 760 and 800 nm was used to assess hemoglobin-myoglobin oxygenation. Initial studies conducted in isolated canine gracilis muscle demonstrated that 760-800-nm absorption correlat...

Background Postpartum bleeding is a component of the normal physiologic process that occurs after delivery or miscarriage. Normally, bleeding decreases over the first postpartum week. When bleeding is excessive and uterine atony has been excluded as a cause, the next most common cause of postpartum bleeding is retained products of conception (RPOC). The placenta usually constitutes the majority...

Abstract Background: Insufficient uterine activity or hypotonic uterine contraction is a common reason and the cause of abnormal labor progress that can be corrected with oxytocin. Realizing this fact that undue prolongation of labor may contribute to prenatal morbidity has resulted in using oxytocin infusion in different kinds of ineffective uterine contractions. Materials and methods: In th...

OBJECTIVE Relaxin, a potent pregnancy-related hormone, has been proposed to be a major mediator of renal physiology in normal pregnancy. We wished to test relaxin levels in pregnancy and preeclampsia. METHODS We performed precise physiologic measurements of kidney function in 38 normal peripartum women and 58 women with preeclampsia. We measured serum relaxin levels prior to delivery and over...

Optogenetics is the use of genetic methods combined with optical technology to achieve gain or loss of function within neuronal circuits. The field of optogenetics has been rapidly expanding in efforts to restore visual function to blinding diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Most work in the field includes a group of light-sensitive retinaldehyde-binding proteins known as opsins. Opsin...