2,701 articles
Review and annual journals in neuroscience
Review and annual journals in neuroscience, chiefly the Annual Review of Neuroscience (est. 1978, ISSN 0147-006X) and Nature Reviews Neuroscience (est. 2000), publish commissioned surveys of the field rather than primary research, with distinct open access and subscription models.
Revised Cardiac Risk Index
Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI, Lee index): 1999 six-point perioperative cardiac risk score for noncardiac surgery, derived from 2893 patients; threshold above 1 marks elevated MACE risk; weak in vascular surgery.
Reward system
Reward system: brain circuitry (VTA, nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, prefrontal cortex) mediating wanting, liking, and learning. Dopamine encodes prediction errors and incentive salience, not pleasure itself; dysfunction links to addiction, depression, Parkinson's.
REWIND trial
REWIND (Researching Cardiovascular Events with a Weekly INcretin in Diabetes) was a 9901-patient randomized trial showing dulaglutide 1.5 mg weekly reduced major adverse cardiovascular events by 12% in type 2 diabetes.
Rh blood group system
The Rh blood group system, also called the Rhesus factor, is a family of red blood cell surface antigens, second to ABO in clinical significance for transfusion medicine.
Rhabdoid tumor predisposition syndrome
Rhabdoid tumor predisposition syndrome (RTPS, RTPS1/RTPS2) is a rare autosomal dominant hereditary cancer syndrome caused by germline SMARCB1 or SMARCA4 variants, predisposing infants to aggressive rhabdoid tumors (ATRT, kidney, soft tissue) with over 90% penetrance by age 5.
Rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever, an autoimmune inflammatory disease following group A strep pharyngitis or skin infection by 1-5 weeks, diagnosed by the 2015 Jones criteria, causing rheumatic heart disease.
Rhodopsin
Rhodopsin: the rod-cell GPCR photoreceptor of scotopic vision, composed of opsin plus 11-cis-retinal; first GPCR crystal structure, Meta II activates transducin, mutations cause retinitis pigmentosa.
Rib
Rib: one of typically 12 pairs of curved chest bones forming the thoracic cage; ribs 1-7 true, 8-10 false, 11-12 floating; commonly variable, with cervical ribs in up to 1% of people.
Rib cage
Rib cage (thoracic cage): bony chest framework of 24 ribs, 12 thoracic vertebrae, and sternum, 37 bones and 98 joints; protects heart and lungs, moves with breathing, true/false/floating ribs.
RIBS VI trial
RIBS VI (NCT02672878) was a Spanish multicenter study of bioresorbable vascular scaffolds for coronary in-stent restenosis; BVS matched drug-coated balloons at 1 year but showed higher 3-year revascularization and thrombosis, inferior to drug-eluting stents.
Richard Arvin Overton
Richard Arvin Overton (1906–2018) was an American supercentenarian and World War II veteran who was the oldest US man and oldest American WWII veteran at his death at 112.
RIDE trial
RIDE (NCT00473382), with sister trial RISE, was a phase 3 sham-controlled trial of monthly intravitreal ranibizumab (0.3 mg, 0.5 mg) for diabetic macular edema; 382 patients, ≥15-letter ETDRS gains at 24 months, basis of 2012 US approval.
Right aortic arch
Right-sided aortic arch (RAA), a congenital variant where the aortic arch courses right of the trachea, occurring in about 0.1% of people; main types are mirror-image branching and aberrant left subclavian artery, the latter forming a compressive vascular ring.
Right coronary artery
Right coronary artery (RCA): artery from the right sinus of Valsalva supplying the right heart, SA/AV nodes, and inferior wall; dominant in about 70–90% of people; most common anomaly is origin from the left coronary sinus.
Right heart strain
Right heart strain: right ventricular stress from overload, chiefly pulmonary embolism and pulmonary hypertension. Recognized by ECG signs (S1Q3T3, RBBB), RV dilation, septal flattening, TAPSE <16 mm, and RV strain imaging with prognostic cutoffs.
Right ventricular myocardial infarction
Right ventricular myocardial infarction is death of heart muscle in the right ventricle, usually from proximal right coronary artery occlusion, causing shock with distended neck veins and clear lungs.
Right-to-left shunt
Right-to-left shunt: abnormal flow of deoxygenated blood into the systemic circulation, causing cyanosis. Causes include Eisenmenger shunt reversal, complex congenital heart disease, PFO, and pulmonary AVMs; diagnosed by bubble echocardiography.
Righting Reflex (medicine)
The righting reflex is the inborn impulse to return the body to its normal orientation in space after displacement; its loss is a standard measure of unconsciousness in rodent research.
Rigor mortis
Rigor mortis (dødsstivhet), postmortem muscular stiffening from ATP depletion and persistent actin-myosin binding; begins 1-2 hours after death, follows Nysten's rule, resolves in 24-48 hours.
Riluzole
Riluzole (Rilutek, Tiglutik, Exservan) is an antiglutamatergic drug for ALS, FDA-approved in 1995; it prolongs median survival by two to three months and remains the only globally approved disease-modifying ALS therapy.
Ring finger
Ring finger: the fourth digit of the human hand, between the middle and little fingers, served by the fourth metacarpal and ulnar artery; known for limited independent movement, grip contribution, and 2D:4D ratio research.
Ringer's lactate solution
Ringer's lactate solution (Hartmann's solution, compound sodium lactate) is a balanced isotonic IV crystalloid with sodium ~130 mmol/L, potassium, calcium, and lactate buffer, used for resuscitation, burns, and critical care.
Rinne test
Rinne test: bedside tuning-fork hearing test comparing air versus bone conduction to detect conductive hearing loss; described by Rinne in 1855 (earlier by Polansky 1842), positive when air conduction is better.
Rivastigmine
Rivastigmine (Exelon) is a carbamate cholinesterase inhibitor for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease dementia, given orally or as a 4.6-13.3 mg/24 h patch; dual AChE/BuChE inhibition, GI side effects predominate.
Robert B. Jaffe
Robert B. Jaffe (died 2020) was an American reproductive endocrinologist who chaired Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF for 22 years and founded the Reproductive Scientist Development Program.
Robert Knox (surgeon)
Robert Knox (1791–1862), Scottish anatomist and ethnologist, leading Edinburgh anatomy teacher whose career was ruined when Burke and Hare sold 16 murder victims' bodies to his school; exonerated but ostracized, later a race-science proponent in London.
Robert Sapolsky
Robert M. Sapolsky, Stanford neuroendocrinologist and primatologist; glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis, Kenyan baboon rank-stress studies, Behave and Determined, MacArthur Fellow, free-will denial debate.
Robot-assisted surgery
Robot-assisted surgery (RAS, robotic surgery): surgeon-controlled computer systems moving instruments through small incisions, from PUMA 560 (1985) and da Vinci (FDA 2000); not autonomous, costly, no FDA cancer indication.
Robot-assisted valve surgery
Robot-assisted valve surgery is heart-valve repair or replacement done through small chest incisions with a surgical robot, pioneered by Alain Carpentier in the first robotic heart operation in 1998.