Need for greater consensus on protection of patient anonymity and rights in facial photographs: a survey of international and domestic oral surgery journals.

Although the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has announced that masking the eye area in clinical photographs is inadequate for protection of patient anonymity, such examples can frequently be found in the field of oral surgery, indicating a large gap between the ideal and reality. In this study, two internationally and one domestically distributed journal published between 2009 and 2011 were analyzed. All articles containing clinical photographs of a patient's facial area were extracted and assessed based on 3 criteria: 1) extent of facial area visible, 2) necessity of showing eye area, and 3) presence or absence and form of eye masking. Showing the eye area was judged necessary in a total of 69.7% and 72.4% of photographs in the international journals, but in only 34.4% in the domestic journal. No eye masking was observed in 46.0% of photographs in one international journal and in only 4.7% in the domestic journal. Inappropriate masking occurred in 57.8% in the domestic journal. These results indicate that usage of eye masking reflects the editorial policy of a journal, influencing both author and reader consciousness. Although there may be problems in adhering to privacy regulations in a clinical setting, more needs to be done to ensure patient privacy in both journals and an educational setting.

Cortical reorganization and somatic delusional psychosis: a magnetoencephalographic study.

A woman complained of feeling a "metal-like thing" in her oral cavity 4 years after a stroke. She was convinced of the physical nature of her complaint despite intact dental and neurological findings. Somatosensory evoked magnetic fields suggested that her decreased right SII function was compensated for by the right SI region, probably contributing to the delusional symptom.

Visual protective sheet can increase blink rate while playing a hand-held video game.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effectiveness of a protective sheet in reducing eye strain caused by unnecessary light reflection on portable liquid crystal display panels while playing Game Boy (Nintendo, Kyoto, Japan). DESIGN: Nonrandomized clinical trial. METHODS: The blink rates of 24 normal volunteers were measured under relaxed conditions while viewing a portable liquid crystal display panel and playing Game Boy with and without the protective sheet of polyethylene terephthalate with antiglare coating for a total of 10 minutes each. RESULTS: The results showed a dramatic increase (from 5.6 +/- 3 to 9.1 +/- 4.9 [P <.0001]) in blinks/minute with use of the protective sheet. CONCLUSION: The protective sheet has shown the possibility of increasing the blink rate by making the screen easier to see.

Face area representation of primary somatosensory cortex in humans identified by whole-head magnetoencephalography.

The feasibility of precise mapping was investigated noninvasively on the face component in predominantly unilateral primary somatosensory cortices (SI) in six healthy subjects. We recorded somatosensory evoked magnetic fields (SEFs) from the SI and secondary somatosensory cortices (SII) following the electrical stimulation of six skin sites: the infraorbital foramen, the angle of mouth, the upper lip, the lower lip, the mental foramen, and the mandibular angle. The median nerve at the wrist was stimulated as a standard of the map. The location of the equivalent current dipoles (ECDs) estimated from the distribution of magnetic fields was identified on MR images of the brain on each subject. The ECDs of the early components of SEF with peaks of 20-30 ms aligned along the SI in the hemisphere contralateral to the stimulation site. Late components with peaks of 80-150 ms were recorded from the bilateral hemispheres, and their ECDs were identified in the SII of the bilateral hemispheres. There was a distinct separation between the ECD locations representing discrete sites on the face and thumb in the SI of the contralateral hemisphere. Five sites of the face area in SI at the contralateral hemisphere were compatible with the conventional arrangement of homunculus in one subject. However, the remaining subjects had variations in the arrangement. The face area reorganization in the SI is possible to be related to the use-dependent cortical plasticity of the individual or to the perceptual experience by vision and proprioception.

Magnetoencephalography study of right parietal lobe dysfunction of the evoked mirror neuron system in antipsychotic-free schizophrenia.

INTRODUCTION: Patients with schizophrenia commonly exhibit deficits of non-verbal communication in social contexts, which may be related to cognitive dysfunction that impairs recognition of biological motion. Although perception of biological motion is known to be mediated by the mirror neuron system, there have been few empirical studies of this system in patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Using magnetoencephalography, we examined whether antipsychotic-free schizophrenia patients displayed mirror neuron system dysfunction during observation of biological motion (jaw movement of another individual). RESULTS: Compared with normal controls, the patients with schizophrenia had fewer components of both the waveform and equivalent current dipole, suggesting aberrant brain activity resulting from dysfunction of the right inferior parietal cortex. They also lacked the changes of alpha band and gamma band oscillation seen in normal controls, and had weaker phase-locking factors and gamma-synchronization predominantly in right parietal cortex. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that untreated patients with schizophrenia exhibit aberrant mirror neuron system function based on the right inferior parietal cortex, which is characterized by dysfunction of gamma-synchronization in the right parietal lobe during observation of biological motion.

Changes in the homeostatic mechanism of dental pulp with age: expression of the core-binding factor alpha-1, dentin sialoprotein, vascular endothelial growth factor, and heat shock protein 27 messenger RNAs.

Dental pulp has various characteristics in the pulp chamber, but only a few biological evaluations about the effect of age on dental pulp tissue have been reported. The purpose of this study was to compare dental pulp from young and adult rats to characterize the homeostatic mechanism. Dental pulp cells (DPCs) were obtained from the first molar of rats, weighing 150 g each for the young group and 350 g each for the adult group. The expression of core-binding factor alpha-1 (Cbfa-1), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), or heat shock protein (HSP) 27 messenger RNAs (mRNAs) by cultured pulp cells was determined by using a quantitative real-time PCR system after 3, 7, or 14 days. The expression of Cbfa-1 mRNA in the young group was higher than in the adult group. Expression of VEGF and HSP27 mRNAs in the adult group was higher than in the young group. The self-defense system in young DPCs is undertaken by calcification, but in adult DPCs it is carried out by the expression of self-defense proteins and the regeneration of vessels.

Cerebral cortical dysfunction in patients with temporomandibular disorders in association with jaw movement observation.

Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) represent a group of chronic painful conditions in the masticatory musculature and temporomandibular joint. To examine possible changes in cortical machinery in TMD patients, we compared neuromagnetic signals evoked by cortical neurons between healthy subjects and TMD patients while they were carefully observing the video frames of jaw-opening movements performed by another person. During the movement observation task in the healthy subjects, we found cortical activation in the following sequence with left hemisphere dominance: (1) the occipitotemporal region near the inferior temporal sulcus (human homologue of MT/V5 in monkeys), (2) the inferior parietal cortex (IPC), and (3) the anterior part of the inferior-lateral precentral gyrus (PrCG). In the TMD patients, however, we found deficit or marked attenuation of the neuromagnetic responses in the PrCG and IPC, while the activity of the MT/V5 showed no differences from that in the healthy subjects. In addition, we could not find any differences in cortical magnetic responses between healthy subjects and TMD patients when they were observing palm-opening movements, indicating that cortical dysfunction associated with jaw-movement observation is specific phenomena in the patients of TMD. Thus the present study provides new neuropathological evidence that TMD patients exhibit dysfunction of recognition mechanisms in cerebral cortex during motor observation, and suggests that disturbance of cortical functions regulating visuomotor integration would play a crucial role in development as well as aggravation of TMD.