Background Intrathecal morphine forms granulomas that arise from the adjacent arachnoid membrane. We propose that these inflammatory cells exit the meningeal vasculature secondary to meningeal mast cell degranulation. Methods Three sets of experiments were accomplished in dogs. 1) Ex vivo Meningeal mast cell degranulation. Histamine release was measured ex vivo from canine dura incubated with opiates. 2) In vivo cutaneous mast cell degranulation. Flare areas on the dog abdomen were measured after subcutaneous opiates. 3) In vivo granuloma pharmacology. Dogs with lumbar intrathecal catheters received infusion of intrathecal saline or intrathecal morphine. Intrathecal morphine dogs received: i) No other treatment (Control); ii) Twice daily subcutaneous naltrexone; iii) Intrathecal co-infusion of cromolyn; or, iv) Twice daily subcutaneous cromolyn for the 24–28 day study course. Results 1) Morphine but not fentanyl evoked dural histamine release, which was blocked by cromolyn but not naloxone. 2) Wheal/flare was produced by subcutaneous morphine, methadone, hydromorphone, but not fentanyl, and was unaffected by naltrexone but prevented by cromolyn. 3) Granulomas occurred in all dogs receiving intrathecal morphine (15/15); subcutaneous naltrexone had no effect on granulomas (6/6), but was reduced by concurrent intrathecal cromolyn (0/5) or twice daily subcutaneous cromolyn (1 of 5). Conclusions The pharmacology of cutaneous/dural MC degranulation and intrathecal granulomas are comparable, not mediated by opioid receptors, and reduced by agents preventing MC degranulation. If an agent produces cutaneous MC degranulation at concentrations produced by intrathecal delivery, the agent may initiate granulomas.

Highly compact, filter-free multispectral photodetectors have important applications in biological imaging, face recognition, and remote sensing. In this work, we demonstrate room-temperature wavelength-selective multipixel photodetectors based on GaAs 0.94 Sb 0.06 nanowire arrays grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy, providing more than 10 light detection channels covering both visible and near-infrared ranges without using any optical filters. The nanowire array geometry-related tunable spectral photoresponse has been demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally and shown to be originated from the strong and tunable resonance modes that are supported in the GaAsSb array nanowires. High responsivity and detectivity (up to 44.9 A/W and 1.2 × 10 12 cm √Hz/W at 1 V, respectively) were obtained from the array photodetectors, enabling highresolution RGB color imaging by applying such a nanowire array based single pixel imager. The results indicate that our filter-free wavelength-selective GaAsSb nanowire array photodetectors are promising candidates for the development of future high-quality multispectral imagers.

One highly desirable function of a diffraction grating is its ability to deflect incident light into a specific diffraction order with near-perfect efficiency. While such asymmetry can be achieved in a variety of ways, e.g., by using a sawtooth (blazed) geometry, a recently emerged approach is to use a planar metagrating comprised of designer multi-resonant periodic units (metamolecules). Here we demonstrate that a bianisotropic unit cell supporting four resonances interfering in the far field can be used as a building block for achieving the prefect deflection. A coupled mode analysis shows that these modes provide a small number of orthogonal electromagnetic radiation patterns that are needed to suppress transmission/reflection into all but one diffraction order. Bianisotropy caused by a mirror symmetry breaking enables a normally incident wave to excite, through near-field couplings, two otherwise "dark" resonant modes. We design and experimentally realize bianisotropic metamolecules which are sub-wavelength in all three dimensions, and whose optical properties are desensitized to fabrication imperfections by their geometric simplicity. We show that optical beams tightly focused onto the metagratings with just a few unit cells can also be asymmetrically deflected with high efficiency, paving the way for compact broadband optical devices.

Recently, III-V semiconductor nanowires have been widely explored as promising candidates for high-performance photodetectors due to their one-dimensional morphology, direct and tunable bandgap, as well as unique optical and electrical properties. Here, the recent development of III-V semiconductor-based single nanowire photodetectors for infrared photodetection is reviewed and compared, including material synthesis, representative types (under different operation principles and novel concepts), and device performance, as well as their challenges and future perspectives.