Short-term sensory and cutaneous vascular responses to therapeutic ultrasound in the forearms of healthy volunteers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Therapeutic ultrasound (US) is used for a variety of clinical pathologies and is thought to accelerate tissue repair and help with pain reduction via its thermal and nonthermal effects. The evidence on physiological effects of US on both sensory and vascular functions in humans is incomplete. Hence, the purpose of this study was to determine the short-term impact of two doses of US (3 MHz, 1:4, 0.25 W/cm(2), 5 min; 1 MHz, continuous, 0.8 W/cm(2), 3 min), on sensory and vascular responses in the healthy forearms. METHODS: Twenty healthy subjects were recruited (mean age, 29.6 ± 8.8 years) for the study. Superficial blood flow (SBF) in the distal forearms was determined using the tissue viability imaging system. Sensory perception thresholds (SPT) were determined from ring finger (C7, C8) to assess A-beta (at 2,000 Hz) and C fiber function (at 5 Hz), using a Neurometer CPT/C device. Subject's two hands were randomly allocated to group order (AB/BA). Scores were obtained before and immediately after the application of US and control. Differences in these were analyzed using repeated measures. RESULTS: Both 3 MHz pulsed US and 1 MHz continuous US showed small to moderate (effect size = 0.12 to 0.68), statistically significant reductions in SBF (3 MHz, mean change = 2.8 AU and 1 MHz, mean change = 3.9 AU, p < 0.05 respectively), skin temperature (2.5°C and 1.1°C, p < 0.05), and SPT at 5 Hz (1.3 and 1 mA, p < 0.05) across time. SPT at 2,000 Hz remained unaltered by all three conditions (p > 0.05). Age and gender also had no effect on all outcome measures (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated minor reductions in skin blood flow, skin temperatures, and C fiber perception thresholds immediately after 3 MHz, and 1 MHz US. The responses observed may have been due to a thermo-cooling effect of the gel or due to the direct effect of US on C fibers of median and ulnar nerves. US had a negligible effect on A-beta fibres. This would suggest that future studies looking at physiological effects of US should move towards investigating larger dosages and study the effects in patient populations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".