Characterization of topographic EEG changes when smoking a cigarette.

The acute effects of cigarette smoking on the human electroencephalogram (EEG) were investigated by the topographic mapping technique. Twenty-six subjects participated in this study, which involved sham smoking and real smoking of preferred cigarettes. Effects of smoking were analyzed by statistical and multivariate analysis. Analysis of variance and t-test results showed a significant decrease in the theta and alpha 1 bands but a significant increase in the alpha 2, beta 1, and beta 2 bands. Factor analysis and cluster analysis showed that there were two or three independent regions on the scalp that indicate the effects of smoking on topographic EEG. A hypothesis was formed that smoking has different effects on human EEG profiles for different brain regions and that there are individual variations in the EEG responses to smoking.

Intraocular lens implantation in a child with monocular cataract and anterior persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous.

A 3-year-old girl had phacoemulsification during which the presence of anterior persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous (PHPV) was discovered. Visual rehabilitation comprised contact lens use for 1 year. However, visual acuity deteriorated gradually because of secondary cataract formation. In a second surgery 1 year after the first, the posterior capsule was incised, followed by an anterior vitrectomy and intraocular lens implantation. At the last follow-up 6 months after the second surgery, there was no evidence of ocular complications and best corrected visual acuity was 0.6.

[A case of remarkable enlargement of cerebral arteriovenous malformation after operation -special reference to their enlargement- (author's transl)].

Presented case is a 27-year-old male with remarkable enlargement of an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in the left frontal lobe, four years after subtotal removal operation. First operation was carried out in February, 1973, because of 5 times adversive seizure to the right. Post-operative angiogram disclosed a tiny telangectatic residual AVM. Four years later of first operation, follow-up angiography showed a remarkable enlargement of AVM. The second operation was performed in March, 1979, with angiographically complete disappearance of AVM. A lot of theory for enlargement of AVM have been presented. Author summarized possible factor's, which influence enlargement of the size of AVM, as follows (Table 3). The first of all, histopathological nature of AVM with hemodynamic factor is most important. And, second important factor is a existence of space of adjacent AVM and multiple telangiectasia of the internal and external on nidus of AVM. At last, biological factors, such as a autonomic growth with individual ageing growth, and a size of AVM, should be regarded. It is author's conclusion, the growth of AVM of our case has occurred in the dead-space originated by previous operation, that continuous expansion of residual small vessels (telangiectasia) in vicinity of the operated region. Therefore, authors emphasizes that at the first time, radical removal of AVM should be operated with meticulous care of existent telangiectatic small vessels in surrounding brain tissue of AVM complex.

[Chronic spinal epidural abscess (author's transl)].

A case of 58 year old female with chronic spinal epidural abscess demonstrating rapid progression of complete spinal cord paralysis without remarkable recovery by laminectomy was reported. Patient had a large subcutaneous abscess on left back, ten years ago. Three months before admission she fell down from stairs and had a compression fracture on the seventh thoracic vertebra. She has been troubled with slight spinal ache and left lower back pain since the fall accident. One month before admission she suddenly noted severe lower back pain with radiation to left side and the pain became more severe. Three weeks after she noted fecal retention without urinary retention. Five days before admission she noted gait disturbance accompanied by numbness of both foots. Three days later she developed inability to urinate and the same day, over the coure of a few hours, she became total paraplegia and anesthesia below the waist. On admission neurological examination and myelography disclosed complete spinal subarachnoid block with flaccid total paraplegia and anesthesia below the lower chest. The clinical diagnosis was spinal epidural mass lesion, probably neoplasm. Laminectomy from Th-6 through Th-9 was performed the next day: three days after complete paralysis. The epidural abscess included pus and soft granulation tissue was found and totally removed. Staphylococcus aureus sensitive to penicillin, chloramphenicol etc. was isolated on becteriologic culture. On seven months after operation, sensory and deep reflexes were considrable improved, but she remained paraplegic without sphincter control. Dicussion were made on the incidence, pathogenesis.

[Bilateral direct injury of oculomotor nerves in craniocerebral trauma-report of a case (author's transl)].

A 46-year-old housewife was admitted to the Kawasaki Hospital soon after traffic accident. She was struck in the right forehead. She was very slightly drowsy but well oriented. Both eyeballs were extremely abducted without any motility. The pupils were bilaterally dilated and equal in size with no response to light. There was a pronounced blephaloptosis on both sides. Another neurological abnormality was a slight right facial weakness. On skull films, a linear fracture in the right temporobasal region was noted but the views of the orbits were normal. A lumbal tap showed a mild subarachnoidal hemorrhage. Three weeks after the trauma, pneumoencephalography showed no abnormal finding. Throughout convalescence, no special treatment was given beyond medication. She improved steadily. Three years after injury, re-examination disclosed that lateral gaze was almost full to either side but upward and downward movements of both eyeballs were limited. In our opinion, the most likely cause of the disability in this case was bilateral direct damage of the oculomotor nerves near the petroclinoid ligament (Grüber).

Hopf bifurcations in multiple-parameter space of the Hodgkin-Huxley equations I. Global organization of bistable periodic solutions.

The Hodgkin-Huxley equations (HH) are parameterized by a number of parameters and shows a variety of qualitatively different behaviors depending on the parameter values. We explored the dynamics of the HH for a wide range of parameter values in the multiple-parameter space, that is, we examined the global structure of bifurcations of the HH. Results are summarized in various two-parameter bifurcation diagrams with I(ext) (externally applied DC current) as the abscissa and one of the other parameters as the ordinate. In each diagram, the parameter plane was divided into several regions according to the qualitative behavior of the equations. In particular, we focused on periodic solutions emerging via Hopf bifurcations and identified parameter regions in which either two stable periodic solutions with different amplitudes and periods and a stable equilibrium point or two stable periodic solutions coexist. Global analysis of the bifurcation structure suggested that generation of these regions is associated with degenerate Hopf bifurcations.

Hopf bifurcations in multiple-parameter space of the hodgkin-huxley equations II. Singularity theoretic approach and highly degenerate bifurcations.

In the Hodgkin-Huxley equations (HH), we have identified the parameter regions in which either two stable periodic solutions with different amplitudes and periods and an equilibrium point or two stable periodic solutions coexist. The global structure of bifurcations in the multiple-parameter space in the HH suggested that the bistabilities of the periodic solutions are associated with the degenerate Hopf bifurcation points by which several qualitatively different behaviors are organized. In this paper, we clarify this by analyzing the details of the degenerate Hopf bifurcations using the singularity theory approach which deals with local bifurcations near a highly degenerate fixed point.

[Study of oxytocin receptor activities in human myometrial preparation (author's transl)].

This study was designed to investigate the oxytocin (OT) receptor activities in the human myometrial specimen throughout the course of pregnancy and in labor. The 3H-labeled OT with adequate specific activity (24 Ci/mM) and biologic activity (350 IU/mg) was employed for the OT radioreceptor assay and the apparent dissociation constant (Kds) and the number of binding sites (NBS) were analyzed by Scatchard plot. These activities were predominantly found in 20,000 xg pellets of the myometrial specimens and its binding activities were 2.2 +/- 0.1 nmol/mg protein that were assessed to be composed of two binding fractions: High-affinity--low capacity receptor fraction and low affinity--high capacity fraction. The gestational increase of the binding affinity was significant and so was the increase of the capacity, and the Kd was 1.87 +/- 0.30 nM and the NBS was 1.50 +/- 0.50 pmol/mg protein in the full term specimens and both were significantly higher than those of the nonpregnant specimens (p less than 0.01). When active labor was initiated, a significant decrease of the binding capacity (0.74 +/- 0.21 pmol/mg protein) was found, regardless of the mode of onset of labor; i.e. spontaneous or induced labor, while the binding affinity remained unchanged. These findings suggest that the gestational increase of the uterine sensitivity to OT is due to the increase of both binding affinity and capacity of the OT receptors. And there are OT and OT receptor interaction actively involved during the active stage of labor and this interaction seems to be coupled with the contractile process but is apparently modified when active labor had been already initiated.

An association study of asthma and total serum immunoglobin E levels for Toll-like receptor polymorphisms in a Japanese population.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of atopic diseases has been increasing in developed countries. This could be explained by the hygiene hypothesis, which states that exposure to specific infections or endotoxins during infancy drives the maturing immune system towards a Th1 phenotype and away from the Th2 phenotype, which is associated with allergic diseases. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play important roles in the signalling of many pathogen-related molecules and endogenous proteins associated with immune activation. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether polymorphisms in genes encoding TLRs are associated with asthma or total serum IgE levels. METHODS: We screened the 5' flanking and coding regions of the TLR2,TLR3, TLR4, and TLR9 genes for polymorphisms by direct sequencing of DNA from 32 asthmatics, and analysed the effect of the polymorphisms on the development of atopic asthma and on total serum IgE levels. RESULTS: We identified 16 variants in TLRs. The transmission disequilibrium test of the families revealed that none of the alleles or haplotypes were associated with asthma or total IgE levels (P>0.05). However, we found an insertion/deletion polymorphism in the 5' untranslated region of TLR2, and an expression construct containing the deletion allele showed lower luciferase activity than the wild-type alleles, suggesting that the deletion allele has reduced transcriptional activity. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that polymorphisms in TLRs are not likely to be associated with the development of atopy-related phenotypes in a Japanese population.

Study of oxytocin receptor: II. oxytocin and prostaglandin F2 alpha receptors in human myometria and amnion-decidua complex during pregnancy and labor.

Oxytocin receptors (OXT-R) and prostaglandin F2 alpha receptors (PGF2 alpha-R) in human myometrium, amnion and decidua during pregnancy and at parturition were examined in an effort to clarify their role in the initiation and maintenance of uterine contractions. The number of binding sites for OXT in myometria showed an increase as gestation advance (Ist trimester v.s. at term; 205 +/- 90 v.s. 671 +/- 98 fmol/mg protein, N = 5, p less than 0.01), and a rapid decrease following the onset of labor (254 +/- 60 fmol/mg protein, N = 5, p less than 0.02). On the other hand the number of PGF2 alpha-R, remained unchanged throughout pregnancy and in labor. This myometrial PGF2 alpha binding capacity was approximately 1/20 to 1/30 that of the OXT binding, while binding affinity was almost equal. The OXT-R both in amnion and decidua, which was 1/6 to 1/7 that in myometrium, showed no significant changes throughout pregnancy or after the onset of labor. Binding affinity for each tissue was almost the same and appeared to increase towards term but no statistical significance was detected. Present data confirmed the presence of OXT as well as PGF2 alpha receptors in the three functionally distinct entities of pregnant human uterus; myometrium, amnion, and decidua. Among the components, the OXT binding increased only in the myometrium during pregnancy, suggesting this tissue specifically responds to OXT. In contrast, there was a constant binding in myometria for PGF2 alpha.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[The interaction of oxytocin-prostaglandin receptors in human myometrium and amnio-decidua throughout pregnancy and in labor].

This study was designed to investigate the interaction of oxytocin and prostaglandin F2 alpha at the receptor level (OXT-R and PGF2 alpha-R) between the myometrium and amnio-decidua throughout pregnancy and at parturition in an effort to clarify which of the two is the first and/or triggering factor involved in the instigation of myometrial contractions. In rat myometria, it was recognized that PGF2 alpha-R increased from day 20 of pregnancy and preceded that of OXT-R from day 22 and thereafter both reached peak levels at delivery. In human myometria, on the other hand, OXT-R showed an increase as gestation advanced and when labor was initiated, a significant decrease was found regardless of the route of labor, while the PGF2 alpha-R the binding capacity of which was only 1/20-1/30 of OXT-R, did not change throughout pregnancy or in labor. The binding affinity of OXT-R in amnio-decidua increased as gestation advanced, while its binding capacity remained unchanged and after the onset of labor that of the amnion decreased significantly even though it was only 1/6-1/7 that of the myometrium. The binding affinity of myometrial OXT-R was elevated following the addition of PGF2 alpha before the onset of labor, but the converse could not be shown. These findings suggest that the instigation and maintenance of human labor may be firstly and/or initially dependent on the increase of the binding activity between OXT and OXT-R in the myometrium, and the PGF2 alpha may facilitate such activity by the allosteric effect on OXT-R directly or on the plasma membrane to increase its binding affinity.