BACKGROUND The exact etiology of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) remains unclear. Curative treatment is not available and current treatment modalities are mainly directed against the predominant symptoms. There are a few studies reporting the beneficial effects of transcutaneous electrical stimulation in patients with chronic constipation, gastroparesis, and functional dyspepsia. AIM To invest...

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating and complex disorder characterized by profound fatigue with uncertain pathologic mechanism. Neuroimage may be an important key to unveil the central nervous system (CNS) mechanism in CFS. Although most of the studies found gray matter (GM) volumes reduced in some brain regions in CFS, there are many factors that could affect GM volumes in CFS, in...

Atlantooccipital assimilation is a partial or complete congenital fusion between the atlas and the base of the occiput. Most patients with atlas assimilation are asymptomatic, but some may present with neurological problems such as myelopathy. We present the case of a 37-year-old woman who presented with neck and occipital pain, episodic neck stiffness, and dizziness. Medical imaging revealed c...

In this paper we present a review of the existing data on interferential mirror birefringence. We also report new measurements of two sets of mirrors that confirm that mirror phase retardation per reflection decreases when mirror reflectivity increases. We finally developed a computational code to calculate the expected phase retardation per reflection as a function of the total number of layer...

In certain real-life situations, moiré patterns can enhance the observer's ability to resolve fine spatial detail of solid structures, theoretically to unlimited degrees. An example of such a situation can be seen in traffic signs on the M25 motorway around London. Moreover, owing to the interferential nature of the moiré pattern, its angular physical size is independent of observer distance, a...

BACKGROUND Interferential electrical stimulation (IES), which may be linked to greater penetration of deep tissue, may restore blood flow by sympathetic nervous modulation; however, studies have found no association between the frequency and duration of the application and blood flow. We hypothesized that 30 min of IES applied to the ganglion stellate region might improve blood flow redistribut...