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Brain stroke connected with aortic blood flow disturbances is a rare disease and its incidence is difficult to assume. Nevertheless, 10-50% of patients with aortic dissection may not experience any pain. In case of 18-30% patients with aortic dissection neurological signs are first disease presentation and among them ischemic stroke is the most common. The most popular aortic dissection classification is with use of Stanford system. Type A involves the ascending aorta and type B is occurring distal to the subclavian artery. Aortic dissection risk factors include hypertension, cystic medionecrosis, bicuspid aortic valve and Marfan’s or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

Background. Neuropathy affects 25% of people with diabetes mellitus. The evaluation of disease severity is still a challenge for modern medicine. Many screening instruments are based primarily on clinical criteria. There is a lack of a simple, reliable and precise scoring system that could improve the classification of neuropathy and monitor disease progression using not only clinical criteria but also electroneurography. There is a need to find sensitive neurography parameters that reflect peripheral nerve impairments in this group of patients. Objectives. This study aimed to create a scoring system for diabetic neuropathy, based on electroneurography criteria, that reflects the natural course of the disease. A new scoring system will improve the treatment of patients with diabetes mellitus. Materials and methods. A total of 113 patients with distal symmetrical polyneuropathy (DSPN) were involved in the study. Median, ulnar, sural, tibial, and peroneal nerves were examined. Parameters such as amplitude, conduction velocity, distal latency, and F wave latency were analyzed. The results of nerve conduction studies in the investigated group were compared to those of the control group, which consisted of 61 healthy volunteers. Results. The most sensitive parameter of peripheral nerve impairment severity was a reduction of the sensory action potential amplitude in the peroneal nerve by 72.8% (p < 0.05). The observation of changes in sensory action potential amplitudes in the peroneal nerve is the most important element of our scoring system. Conclusions. A new electroneurography scoring system of DSPN severity should be based on sensory and motor action potential amplitudes that reflect axonal loss in the examined nerves and the nature of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interferometric near-infrared spectroscopy (iNIRS) is an optical method that noninvasively measures the optical and dynamic properties of the human brain in vivo . However, the original iNIRS technique uses single-mode fibers for light collection, which reduces the detected light throughput. The reduced light throughput is compensated by the relatively long measurement or integration times (∼1 sec), which preclude monitoring of rapid blood flow changes that could be linked to neural activation. Here, we propose parallel interferometric near-infrared spectroscopy (πNIRS) to overcome this limitation. In πNIRS we use multi-mode fibers for light collection and a high-speed, two-dimensional camera for light detection. Each camera pixel acts effectively as a single iNIRS channel. So, the processed signals from each pixel are spatially averaged to reduce the overall integration time. Moreover, interferometric detection provides us with the unique capability of accessing complex information (amplitude and phase) about the light remitted from the sample, which with more than 8000 parallel channels, enabled us to sense the cerebral blood flow with only a 10 msec integration time (∼100x faster than conventional iNIRS). In this report, we have described the theoretical foundations and possible ways to implement πNIRS. Then, we developed a prototype continuous wave (CW) πNIRS system and validated it in liquid phantoms. We used our CW πNIRS to monitor the pulsatile blood flow in a human forearm in vivo . Finally, we demonstrated that CW πNIRS could monitor activation of the prefrontal cortex by recording the change in blood flow in the forehead of the subject while he was reading an unknown text., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (© 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement.)