Cytoplasmic transfer is the technique in which the contents of a fertile egg from a donor are injected into the infertile egg of the patient along with the sperm. Egg donors are resources for women with no eggs due to surgery, chemotherapy, or genetic causes; or with poor egg quality, previously unsuccessful IVF cycles or advanced maternal age. In the egg donor process, eggs are retrieved from a donors ovaries, fertilized in the laboratory with the sperm from the recipients partner, and the resulting healthy embryos are returned to the recipients uterus. Sperm donation may provide the source for the sperm used in IVF procedures where the male partner produces no sperm or has an inheritable disease, or where the woman being treated has no male partner. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves the use of genetic screening mechanisms such as fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) or comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) to help identify genetically abnormal embryos and improve healthy outcomes. Embryo splitting can be used for twinning to increase the number of available embryos. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
A pre-implantation genetic diagnosis procedure may be conducted on embryos prior to implantation (as a form of embryo profiling), and sometimes even of oocytes prior to fertilization. PGD is considered in a similar fashion to prenatal diagnosis. PGD is an adjunct to ART procedures, and requires in vitro fertilization to obtain oocytes or embryos for evaluation. Embryos are generally obtained through blastomere or blastocyst biopsy.
For example, interest existed in cooling the injured brain; however, a 2020 Cochrane review did not find enough evidence to see if it was useful or not. Maintaining a normal temperature in the immediate period after a TBI appeared useful. One review found a lower than normal temperature was useful in adults but not children. While two other reviews found it did not appear to be useful.Further research is necessary to determine if the vasoconstrictor indomethacin (indometacin) can be used to treat increased pressure in the skull following a TBI.In addition, drugs such as NMDA receptor antagonists to halt neurochemical cascades such as excitotoxicity showed promise in animal trials but failed in clinical trials. These failures could be due to factors including faults in the trials design or in the insufficiency of a single agent to prevent the array of injury processes involved in secondary injury.Other topics of research have included investigations into mannitol, dexamethasone, progesterone, xenon, barbiturates, magnesium (no strong evidence), calcium channel blockers, PPAR-γ agonists, curcuminoids, ethanol, NMDA antagonists, caffeine. Procedures
In addition to traditional imaging modalities, there are several devices that help to monitor brain injury and facilitate research. Microdialysis allows ongoing sampling of extracellular fluid for analysis of metabolites that might indicate ischemia or brain metabolism, such as glucose, glycerol, and glutamate. Intraparenchymal brain tissue oxygen monitoring systems (either Licox or Neurovent-PTO) are used routinely in neurointensive care in the US.