Development of a toileting performance assessment test for patients in the early stroke phase.

The study aimed to develop a toileting performance assessment test to measure the toileting performance ability of patients in the early phase after stroke. In this study, 214 stroke patients were enrolled. Cronbach's , Spearman's rank correlations ( values) with the toileting-related items of the functional independence measure and Barthel Index, interrater reliability (weighted ), and responsiveness (standardized response mean) were evaluated.

SHISA6 Confers Resistance to Differentiation-Promoting Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling in Mouse Spermatogenic Stem Cells.

In the seminiferous tubules of mouse testes, a population of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor family receptor alpha 1 (GFRα1)-positive spermatogonia harbors the stem cell functionality and supports continual spermatogenesis, likely independent of asymmetric division or definitive niche control. Here, we show that activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling promotes spermatogonial differentiation and reduces the GFRα1 cell pool. We further discovered that SHISA6 is a cell-autonomous Wnt inhibitor that is expressed in a restricted subset of GFRα1 cells and confers resistance to the Wnt/β-catenin signaling.

Development of new measurement system of thoracic excursion with biofeedback: reliability and validity.

Background: Respiratory rehabilitation reduces breathlessness from patient with respiratory dysfunction. Chest expansion score, which represents the circumference magnitude of the thoracic cage, is used for a target when treating patients with respiratory disease. However, it is often difficult for patients to understand the changes in the respiratory status and be motivated for therapy continuously.

Modulation of ATP-induced inward currents by docosahexaenoic acid and other fatty acids in rat nodose ganglion neurons.

The effects of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and other fatty acids on P2X-receptor-mediated inward currents in rat nodose ganglion neurons were studied using the nystatin perforated patch-clamp technique. DHA accelerated the desensitization rate of the ATP-induced current. DHA showed use-dependent inhibition of the peak ATP-induced current.

Nucleoprotamine diet derived from salmon soft roe protects mouse hippocampal neurons from delayed cell death after transient forebrain ischemia.

The nutritional benefits of nucleoprotamine (NP), the main component of fish soft roe, have been rarely addressed. In the present study, the preventive effect of oral supplements of nucleoprotamine and its derivatives, DNA and protamine (PT), extracted from salmon soft roe, on survival rate and hippocampal cell death induced by transient brain ischemia, was evaluated in mice. Artificially formulated nucleoprotamine-free (NF) diet with/without nucleoprotamine, DNA or protamine was fed orally.