Allograft liver failure awaiting liver transplantation in Japan

Journal of Gastroenterology - Following liver transplantation (LT), allograft liver failure can be developed by various causes and requires re-LT. Hence, this study aimed to clarify the...     

Nationwide survey for patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure occurring between 2017 and 2019 and diagnosed according to proposed Japanese criteria

Journal of Gastroenterology - The significance of the 2018 Japanese diagnostic criteria for acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) has not yet been evaluated. A nationwide survey was performed for...     

Voxel-based analysis of age and gender effects on striatal [123I] FP-CIT binding in healthy Japanese adults

Annals of Nuclear Medicine - Although previous studies have investigated age and gender effects on striatal subregional dopamine transporter (DaT) binding, these studies were mostly based on a...     

Ob/ob mice as a model of delayed gastric emptying

Diabetic gastroparesis is a well-recognized delay of gastric emptying in diabetic patients. We assessed the gastric emptying rate in ob/ob mice, a genetic model of obesity and diabetes. The basal gastric emptying rate in 22- to 27-week-old ob/ob mice was significantly lower than that in 10- to 11-week-old ob/ob mice (P<.01). Our results indicate that the ob/ob mice are a useful model not only of glucose intolerance but also of delayed gastric emptying as a diabetic complication.     

Brain peptide YY receptors: highly conserved characteristics throughout vertebrate evolution.

We have shown previously that peptide YY (PYY) receptors are uniquely distributed in various mammalian brains and also have identified the receptor from porcine hippocampal membranes as a protein of 50,000 mol wt. To extend these observations, both the characteristics of PYY-receptor interaction and the structure of the receptor have been examined and compared with those of its sister peptide, neuropeptide Y (NPY), in the brains of various vertebrates including mammals (human, dog, guinea pig, rat, and mouse), birds (chicken), reptiles (snapping turtle), amphibians (bullfrog), and fish (yellowtail fish). The affinities and relative potencies of PYY as well as NPY receptors for pancreatic polypeptide (PP) family peptides were about the same in all species examined except for chickens. PYY and NPY bound to both the PYY and NPY receptors with high affinities, but porcine and avian PPs did not. In chicken brain, however, PYY, NPY, porcine PP, and avian PP all bound to the receptors with high affinity. Analysis of the equilibrium binding data for PYY receptors produced curvilinear Scatchard plots in all of the species, suggesting the existence of high and low affinity binding sites. Affinity cross-linking using disuccinimidyl suberate followed by electrophoretic analysis of ligand-receptor complexes characterized the molecular size of PYY and NPY receptors. [125I]PYY was cross-linked to a protein of 50,000 mol wt without sulfhydryl-bonded subunits on mammalian hippocampal membranes. A receptor protein with the same mol wt was identified in other brain areas, including hypothalamus and pituitary, PYY receptors in other vertebrate brains were similar in size to those of mammalian species except in chicken brain, where a receptor protein of 67,000 mol wt was observed. In addition, we also have demonstrated that the NPY receptor is a monomeric 50,000 and 55,000 mol wt protein in mammalian and fish brains, respectively. These findings indicate that brain PYY and NPY receptors in most vertebrate species from fish to man are pharmacologically and structurally similar and have been well conserved over a period of evolution of 400 million yr. The divergence of the receptors observed in chicken brain may reflect some change in their function.     

A case of repetitive intrapleural cancer chemotherapy using INFUSE-A-PORT for malignant mesothelioma

A 57-year-old man was diagnosed as having malignant pleural mesothelioma. We placed an implantable reservoir (INFUSE-A-PORT) into his pleural cavity to administer repetitive intrapleural chemotherapy. We administered intrapleural chemotherapy 7 times over a period of 10 months. The progression of the disease was very gradual; he could continue working during this time. INFUSE-A-PORT may be useful for repetitive intrapleural chemotherapy in outpatient treatment of malignant mesothelioma.     

Effects of spatial frequency on visual evoked magnetic fields

Psychophysical and visual evoked potential (VEP) studies have shown that spatial frequency of a visual stimulus affects contrast sensitivity and VEPs in humans. However, it is not clear whether and how the effect of spatial frequency varies among cortical areas. Considering that all visual inputs to the retina could be expressed as a sum of sinusoidal gratings of different spatial frequencies, the effect of spatial frequency must be clarified to separate the brain activity specific to each visual stimulus. In order to examine the effect of spatial frequency on different cortical areas, the present study compared cortical responses to sinusoidal gratings of seven different spatial frequencies using magnetoencephalography (MEG). MEG waveforms of twelve healthy adults in response to sinusoidal gratings of 0.3–18.1 cycles per degree were subjected to a multi-dipole analysis. As a result, the effect of spatial frequency was significant on the first peak latency and amplitude of the source activity around V1 and V2 but not on the source activity around V3 and V6, indicating that the effect of spatial frequency varies across different visual areas in the human brain. Our results also suggest that the responses in V1 and V2 that have a peak around 90 ms and that of V6 peaking around 120 ms should be separated to investigate the stimulus-specific cortical response, particularly when examining effects of spatial frequency on the response latency.     

Effects of movement duration on error compensation in periodic bimanual isometric force production

Recent studies using bimanual force production have examined how factors influence redundancy in the nervous system. The present study examined effects of different movement durations on bimanual force control strategies. Ten healthy male participants produced periodic isometric forces such that the sum of two finger forces was a target cycling between 5 and 10 % of maximum voluntary contraction during five movement durations (500, 750, 1,000, 1,250, and 1,500 ms). Correlations between the two finger forces changed from positive to negative with an increase in duration. The polynomial regression analysis indicates that while the correlations between two finger forces were most negative at the target duration of 1,250 ms, they became more positive as the durations deviated from 1,250 ms. Similarly, while force variability was smallest at the target duration of 1,250 ms, it increased as the durations deviated from 1,250 ms. These findings suggested that while the duration of 1,250 ms might be a natural frequency of both fingers, bimanual force strategies changed from force error compensation to force coupling as the durations deviated from 1,250 ms. In addition, while the variance in the sum of two finger forces (the task-relevant variance) decreased with movement duration, the difference between both the finger forces (the task-irrelevant variance) did not change with the duration. Thus, a decrease in the task-relevant variance with movement duration resulted in the negative correlation between the two finger forces and the small force variability.