Person:

Hansen, Anne

Thrombosis and biofouling of extracorporeal circuits and indwelling medical devices cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. We describe a bioinspired coating that repels blood from virtually any material by covalently tethering a molecular layer of perfluorocarbon, which holds a thin liquid film of medical-grade perfluorocarbon on the substrate surface, mimicking the liquid layer certain plants use to prevent adhesion. This coating prevents fibrin attachment, reduces platelet adhesion and activation, suppresses biofilm formation, and is stable under blood flow in vitro. Surface-coated medical-grade tubing and catheters, assembled into arteriovenous shunts and implanted in living pigs, remain patent for at least 8 hours without anticoagulation. This coating technology offers the potential to significantly reduce anticoagulation in patients while preventing thrombotic occlusion and biofouling of medical devices.

Infancy is the most critical period in human brain development. Studies demonstrate that subtle brain abnormalities during this state of life may greatly affect the developmental processes of the newborn infants. One of the rapidly developing methods for early characterization of abnormal brain development is functional connectivity of the brain at rest. While the majority of resting-state studies have been conducted using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), there is clear evidence that resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) can also be evaluated using other imaging modalities. The aim of this review is to compare the advantages and limitations of different modalities used for the mapping of infants’ brain functional connectivity at rest. In addition, we introduce photoacoustic tomography, a novel functional neuroimaging modality, as a complementary modality for functional mapping of infants’ brain.