Noninvasive determination of absorption and reduced scattering coefficients of adult heads by time-resolved reflectance measurements for functional near infra-red spectroscopy.

Absorption and reduced scattering coefficients (µ(a) and µ'(s)) of adult heads have been noninvasively determined by time-resolved reflectance measurements. The finite difference time domain (FDTD) analysis was used to calculate time-resolved reflectance from realistic adult head models with brain grooves containing a non-scattering layer. In vivo time-resolved reflectances of human heads were measured by a system composed of a time-correlated single photon counter and a diode laser. By minimizing the objective functions that compare theoretical and experimental time resolved reflectances, µ(a) and µ'(s) of brain were determined. It became clear that time-resolved measurements have enough sensitivity to determine both µ(a) and µ'(s) for superficial tissues, gray matter and white matter, except µ(s) for white matter.

Autopsy-proven untreated previous pulmonary thromboembolism: frequency and distribution in the pulmonary artery and correlation with patients' clinical characteristics.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to evaluate untreated, previous pulmonary thromboembolism (PE) in patients with acute fatal PE. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We studied 64 patients diagnosed as having died from acute PE by medico-legal autopsy. Previous PE was histologically confirmed on the basis of organized thrombi (OT). The distributions of OT were analyzed in five different sizes of pulmonary artery branches in each of 18 pulmonary segmental arteries (90 in total). The frequency of OT in each patient was evaluated by determining the percentage of examined sections containing OT. RESULTS: OT were confirmed in 59 of 64 (92%) patients. The mean frequency of OT per patient was 27% of the 90 branches. Among the segmental arteries, the right posterior basal lobe showed the highest frequency of OT; among the five artery branches examined, the subsegmental branch showed the highest frequency of OT. OT were not detected in arterioles. Patients with recent trauma or surgery and inpatients showed significantly lower frequencies of OT than those without these risk factors. The 26 patients with prolonged pre-existing symptoms lasting more than a day showed a higher frequency of OT than the 12 patients who suffered for less than a day and the 26 without pre-existing symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Most patients with acute fatal PE have a subclinical history of recurrent PE. The frequency of their untreated PE is suspected to correlate with specific risk factors for venous thromboembolism and their clinical course.

Innervation and activity dependent dynamics of postsynaptic oxidative metabolism.

Despite extensive investigations into the mechanisms of aerobic respiration in mitochondria, the spontaneous metabolic activity of individual cells within a whole animal has not been observed in real time. Consequently, little is known about whether and how the level of mitochondrial energy metabolism is regulated in a cell during development of intact systems. Here we studied the dynamics of postsynaptic oxidative metabolism by monitoring the redox state of mitochondrial flavoproteins, an established indicator of energy metabolism, at the developing Drosophila neuromuscular junction. We detected transient and spatially synchronized flavoprotein autofluorescence signals in postsynaptic muscle cells. These signals were dependent on the energy substrates and coupled to changes in mitochondrial membrane potential and Ca2+ concentration. Notably, the rate of autofluorescence signals increased during synapse formation through contact with the motoneuronal axon. This rate was also influenced by the magnitude of synaptic inputs. Thus, presynaptic cells tightly regulate postsynaptic energy metabolism presumably to maintain an energetic balance during neuromuscular synaptogenesis. Our results suggest that flavoprotein autofluorescence imaging should allow us to begin assessing the progress of synapse formation from a metabolic perspective.

Synaptic components necessary for retrograde signaling triggered by calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II during synaptogenesis.

The development and function of presynaptic terminals are tightly controlled by retrograde factors presented from postsynaptic cells. However, it remains elusive whether major constituents of synapses themselves are necessary for retrograde modulation during synaptogenesis. Here we show that the homophilic cell adhesion molecule Fasciclin II (FasII) as well as the scaffolding protein Discs large (DLG) is indispensable for retrograde signaling initiated by calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) at developing Drosophila neuromuscular junctions. Postsynaptic activation of CaMKII increased the area of nerve terminals, the number of active zones, and the frequency of miniature excitatory synaptic currents in wild-type animals. However, all of these retrograde effects were abolished in the fasII or dlg mutant background. On the other hand, the retrograde effects remained in null mutants of the glutamate receptor subunit GluRIIA. Furthermore, we show that CaMKII-induced modulation was independent of the bone morphogenetic protein signaling that is important for retrograde control at mature larvae. These results highlight a novel function of FasII as well as DLG, and more broadly, illustrate that prime synaptic components are necessary for transferring target-derived signals to presynaptic cells at a certain developing synapse.

Time-resolved noninvasive optical parameters determination in three-dimensional biological tissue using finite difference time domain analysis with nonuniform grids for diffusion equations.

The finite difference time domain (FDTD) analysis based on nonuniform grids for solving the diffusion equations in biological tissue has been proposed. It has been confirmed that the analysis greatly reduce the time for calculating time-resolved reflectance in three-dimensional scattering medium preserving the numerical accuracies. Based on the analysis, noninvasive optical parameters determination in three-dimensional inhomogeneous medium divided into 192 homogeneous cubic cell 10 (mm) in edge lengths has been studied. Chi-square fitting for theoretical and experimental time-resolved reflectance was optimized by the downhill simplex method. As a result, it has been become clear that absorption coefficients in all cubic cells in scattering medium are estimated within the accuracy of 10% by utilizing only time-resolved reflectance.

Developmental stage-dependent modulation of synapses by postsynaptic expression of activated calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II.

In Drosophila neuromuscular junctions, there is a unique system which consists of two neighboring muscles (M6 and M7) innervated by the same neurons and a gene of interest can be expressed in only M6 or in both muscles by GAL4-upstream activating sequence expression system. By using this system, we previously demonstrated that expression of activated calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) in the muscle cell promotes coordinated maturation of pre- and postsynaptic sites of larvae just after hatching (JAH larvae) in a synapse-specific manner. Here we show that the promotive effects are no longer seen in the older larvae, 8-10 h after hatching (8 h AH larvae). Morphological studies indicate that CaMKII activation in fact reduces postsynaptic sites at 8 h AH. This is opposite to the effect observed in JAH larvae. These results suggest that the mode of CaMKII function switches during development, and that regulation of postsynaptic CaMKII activity is necessary for normal synaptic development. Finally, we report that in 8 h AH but not in JAH larvae, synapses on M7, in which CaMKII activity is not manipulated, are affected by the expression of activated CaMKII in M6. This suggests the interesting possibility that at certain developmental stages only, modification of synapses on one target cell can influence the synapses on another target cell innervated by the same neurons.

Time-resolved reflectance of an optical pulse from an adult head model utilizing the finite difference time domain (FDTD) analysis.

Time-resolved reflectance of an optical pulse from a four-layered adult head model including cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) has been analyzed based on the finite difference time domain analysis (FDTD) which has been formulated by authors. It has been confirmed that the intensity of the reflected light and the mean time of flight dependences on the source-detector separations estimated from the time-resolved reflectance agree quite well with the previously reported experiments and calculations. The sensitivities for detecting optical property changes of gray and white matter beyond CSF in time-resolved reflectance have been evaluated and it has been become clear that they are enhanced compared with the sensitivities in the intensity of the reflected light and the mean time of flight. The derivatives of reflectance with respect to the absorption coefficients of gray and white matter have shown that the presence of CSF improves the capabilities of time-resolved reflectance for detecting optical property changes in the brain in actual noise limited photon detection systems.

Postsynaptic activation of calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II promotes coordinated pre- and postsynaptic maturation of Drosophila neuromuscular junctions.

The interaction between a neuron and its target cell(s) is essential for the development of synapses. To elucidate the role of target cells in synaptogenesis, the activity of postsynaptic calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) was manipulated in a mosaic manner and its specific effect was examined at the developing Drosophila neuromuscular junction. We found that postsynaptic expression of constitutively active CaMKII augmented the amplitude of excitatory synaptic currents (ESCs) and the frequency of miniature ESCs. It also promoted morphological maturation of presynaptic as well as postsynaptic specializations, which presumably underlie the enhancement of synaptic activities. Expression of an inhibitory peptide of CaMKII in the postsynaptic cell partially affected the synaptic maturation. These results suggest two significant functions of postsynaptic CaMKII in synaptogenesis-retrograde modulation of presynaptic properties and coordinated regulation of pre- and postsynaptic maturation.

[The clinical study of 794 patients with an upper urinary tract stone analyzed by infrared spectroscopy].

During the 48-year period from January, 1938 to December, 1985, upper urinary tract stones obtained from 794 patients were analyzed by infrared spectroscopy in our Department. Their clinical manifestations were studied, mainly in relation to stone composition. The ratio of males to females was 3.0 to 1. In recent years, the incidence of females tended to increase. In the age distribution, twenties were most frequent followed by thirties together with fourties before 1965, but after 1966, the thirties were most frequent, and fourties and fifties increased. The composition of 794 stones was as follows. The most frequent type was calcium oxalate combined with calcium phosphate (43.1%), followed by calcium oxalate (39.8%) and calcium phosphate (9.6%). Magnesium ammonium phosphate stones were found in 1.6% and uric acid stones in 2.9%. Calcium oxalate stones, uric acid stones and oxalate-containing stones were found more frequently in males than in females. On the other hand, magnesium ammonium phosphate stones, calcium phosphate stones and phosphate-containing stones were found less frequently in males than in females. There was a high occurrence of calcium phosphate stones and uric acid stones in patients older than 60 years old. The occurrence of calcium oxalate stones and uric acid stones increased and that of phosphate-containing stones decreased after 1966. Most of the recurrent stones revealed the same or similar composition as the initial stones.

[Clinical study of allylestrenol (Org AL-25) on patients with prostatic hypertrophy--transrectal ultrasonography and urodynamic examination].

Seventeen patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy were treated with 50 mg allylestrenol per day for a long period of time (mean: 37.7 weeks), and subjective and objective findings, transrectal ultrasonotomography, urodynamics, serum lipids and hormone levels were examined. Improvement rates of subjective and objective findings were 42.9-92.9%. A significant decrease in weight and diameter (antero-posterior, lateral) of the prostate was observed, but the difference in the height of the prostate was not significant. Increase in intravesical pressure was observed in 9 out of 14 cases (64.3%) and the decrease in area under the urethral pressure curve at functional profile length was observed in 6 out of 11 cases (54.5%). Slight increase of the serum lipid levels was observed in a few cases, but in many cases the fluctuation was within normal range. Although clear decrease in the testosterone levels was seen, decrease of libido and potency was observed in only one case (5.9%). No other side-effect was found. The overall efficacy rate was 58.8%, and clinical usefulness of Allylestrenol on benign prostatic hypertrophy was confirmed.

[Clinical effects of Chinese herb medicine (hochu-ekki-to) on infertile men].

Hochu-Ekki-To, a Chinese herb medicine, was administrated orally to 45 patients with primary male infertility due to oligozoospermia (sperm density was below 40 million/ml) for over 12 weeks. After the treatment, significant increases in sperm concentrations, rate of motility and total counts of normal spermatozoa, which was calculated as seminal volume by sperm density and by rate of normal form of spermatozoa, were observed, especially, in the group of moderate oligozoospermia (sperm density was ranged from 20 to 40 million/ml). In the clinical effect, the rate of pregnancy was 20.0% (9/45) and the rate of clinical efficiency was 51.1% (23/45). No changes of laboratory examinations were observed. We conclude that this Chinese herb medicine is more effective for the treatment of oligozoospermia, especially moderate oligozoospermia, without any serious side effects.

Drastic emission-spectra changes in a semiconductor laser owing to optical feedback from an optical connector.

The time-averaged longitudinal-mode power of a semiconductor laser coupled to a fiber changes drastically when an external force is applied to a multimode fiber terminated with an optical connector. No emission-spectra changes have been observed in the case of a single-mode fiber. This phenomenon is considered to be induced by the wavelength-dependent change of the reflected field speckle intensity coupled into the laser-active region.

Monitoring method for axis alignment of single-mode optical fiber and splice-loss estimation.

A new method for core-axis alignment and precise splice-loss estimation for single-mode optical fibers is presented. By using a differential interference contrast microscope, we can achieve core-axis alignment with an offset below 0.3 microm, which results in a butt-joint loss increase of 0.04 dB compared with that obtained by alignment using a conventional optical monitoring method. Furthermore, splice-loss estimation with a precision of 0.05 dB is attained for a low-loss region without using an index-matching liquid.

Baseband frequency response of a graded-index fiber excited by a step-index fiber.

Input modal power distribution and baseband frequency response of a graded-index fiber have been investigated theoretically and experimentally, when the fiber was excited by a step-index fiber. It is found that the bandwidth of the graded-index fiber is measured with good reproducibility and accuracy by using the step-index fiber as an exciter. An appropriate choice of step-index fiber parameters is made with respect to the test graded-index fiber.

Pulse circulation measurement of transmission characteristics in long optical fibers.

A pulse circulation method to measure the length dependence of transmission characteristics in optical fibers is described. In principle, the method has the advantage that no unnecessary power is branched off in the loop. Using this method, the length dependence of transmission characteristics of step and graded index fibers has been measured and found to be different in both cases. It is concluded that the difference is due to the material dispersion effect, which significantly influences pulse spreading in long length graded index fibers.