Is tongue stiffness lower in patients with obstructive sleep apnea during wakefulness compared with matched control subjects?
In awake subjects with obstructive sleep apnea, the tongue is less stiff than in similar healthy subjects and this difference occurs in the muscle fiber direction. CPAP did not significantly reduce tongue stiffness. Thus, any change in neural drive to genioglossus during wakefulness is insufficient to restore normal tongue stiffness.
These results show that deletion of the tPA-gene in mice leads to lower bactericidal potential of tPA(-/-) neutrophils, which results in significantly more bacterial outgrowth during experimental pyelonephritis.