Bøker i Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology-serien

Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) continues to mature as a research field and is primed to make a swift transition to routine preclinical and clinical applications. This book will serve two main purposes:Advanced education in QUS by providing a complete and thorough review of all theoretical, physical, and engineering aspects of QUS.Review of recent development of QUS by lead contributors in the research field.This 2nd edition will focus on 6 modern research topics related to quantitative ultrasound of soft tissues:Spectral-based methods for tissue characterization, tissue typing, cancer detection, etc.Attenuation estimation for tissue characterization and improving spectral based methodsEnvelope statistics analysis as a means of quantifying and imaging tissue properties.Ultrasound computed tomography for preclinical and clinical imaging.Scanning acoustic microscopy for formingimages of mechanical properties of soft tissues with micron resolution.Phantoms for quantitative ultrasound.

This book provides the latest research progress on Extracellular vesicles (EVs) in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. EVs are small bilayer lipid membrane vesicles released by cells and function for intercellular communication. Increasing evidence has shown that EVs play crucial roles in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, which seriously threaten human health worldwide. The book contains four sections: 1) Extraction Methods; 2) EVs in Cardiovascular Diseases; 3) EVs in Metabolic Diseases; and 4) Therapeutic Implications. This book is useful for biologists, cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons, endocrinologists, internists, nurses, undergraduate and graduate students in medicine and cell biology, and others interested in cardiovascular and metabolic medicine.

This book provides basic knowledge of the biology, chemistry, and function of oxysterols and its derivatives as well as of phytosterols in numerous human diseases.The book is divided into six sections and begins with an introduction to the biological and chemical properties of oxysterols and its derivatives as well as phytosterols, their synthesis, and the methods currently used for their detection in various biospecimens. The following section discusses in detail the various effects of oxysterols on numerous human diseases, including infectious diseases, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, atherosclerosis, and cancer, as well as neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Importantly, the potential of oxysterols as biomarkers for some of these diseases is also highlighted. The book concludes with an outlook on the pharmacological and nutritional effects of oxysterols and phytosterols and their potential use by the food, and pharmaceutical industries.Aiming to provide an in-depth overview of the biological and the chemical properties of oxysterols and phytosterols and their implications for human health, this book will be of interest to basic and clinical scientists, as well as to anyone working in the food or pharmaceutical industry who is exploring the potential of oxysterols and phytosterols.

This book renders a comprehensive understanding of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from their embryonic development through adult maintenance to aging, in the studies conducted in zebrafish and mammals. Hematopoiesis provides a paradigm for understanding the development, maintenance, regeneration, aging and malignant transformation of mammalian organs. Sitting at the apex of the hematopoiesis hierarchy tree, HSCs orchestrate their proliferation, self-renewal, and differentiation to produce all the blood cell lineages throughout life, which represents the best example for somatic stem cell studies. In this book, key regulatory mechanisms for HSC self-renewal and differentiation are overviewed in an array of fields including epigenetics, metabolism and microenvironment regulation. It also highlights the HSC heterogeneity and clonal dynamics from the recent advanced single-cell technologies. This book elaborates on the research history of HSC studies and reveals how the insights from HSC studies shed light on their clinic application. It presents great value from the bench to the clinic.

This book presents the latest research on multisensory brain function. Namely, the mechanisms by which the brain processes and integrates information from multiple sensory modalities. Its contents cover a broad range of topics, including optimal integration, cross-modal interactions, calibration, and causal inference ¿ with an emphasis on their neuronal underpinnings. By bringing together efforts from different laboratories around the world we aim to collaboratively shed light on these fundamental brain processes, that underlie perception, cognition, and behavior in a complex multisensory world, and to spur innovation of brain-inspired technologies

This book provides a state-of-the-art report on our current understanding of aquaporins and the future direction of the field. Aquaporins (AQPs) are a group of water-channel proteins that are specifically permeable to water and other small molecules, such as glycerol and urea. To date thirteen water-channel proteins (AQP0 ¿ AQP12) have been cloned and the mechanisms and physiological functions of water transport across biological membranes have long been the subject of interest. Recent advances in the molecular biology and physiology of water transport have yielded new insights into how and why water moves across cell membranes, and studies on aquaporin knockout mouse models suggest that aquaporins are involved in the development of some diseases and they may be useful targets of research into selective-inhibitor drugs. By focusing on the advances made over the last 30 years in the biophysics, genetics, protein structure, molecular biology, physiology, pathophysiology and pharmacology of aquaporins in mammalian cell membranes, this book provides novel insights into further mechanisms and the physiological significance of water and some small molecule transport in mammals in order to stimulate further research in new directions.In the second version, fourteen chapters will be updated base on the most recent research articles. Ten new chapters will be added.