Publications by authors named "Junko Hasegawa"

Article Synopsis
  • The study explores how dietary habits may influence the prevention and management of schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) in older adults, particularly in relation to genetic predispositions and lifestyle-related diseases.
  • A cohort of 730 older patients was assessed for their dietary habits across various food categories while calculating polygenic risk scores (PRSs) for SCZ and BD based on large-scale genetic studies.
  • Findings indicated that higher genetic risk for SCZ and BD is correlated with lower consumption of nutrient-rich foods like light-colored vegetables and soybeans, with notable differences in dietary impacts between types of BD, especially BD I.
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Midazolam is widely used for intravenous sedation. However, wide interindividual variability is seen in the sensitivity to midazolam. The association between genetic factors and interindividual differences in midazolam sensitivity remains unclear.

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Opioids are almost mandatorily used for analgesia for cancer pain and postoperative pain. Opioid analgesics commonly induce nausea as a side effect. However, the genetic factors involved are still mostly unknown.

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Aim: Abundant data are available on the effect of the A118G (rs1799971) single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the μ-opioid receptor OPRM1 gene on morphine and fentanyl requirements for pain control. However, data on the effect of this SNP on intraoperative remifentanil requirements remain limited. We investigated the effect of this SNP on intraoperative remifentanil requirements.

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Phantom tooth pain (PTP) is one type of non-odontogenic neuropathic toothache, which rarely occurs after appropriate pulpectomy or tooth extraction. The cause of PTP is unknown. We investigated pain-related genetic factors that are associated with PTP.

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This study investigated how elderly individuals' exercise satisfaction in snowy areas relates to their health indicators and future care needs. Survey data were collected from individuals aged ≥65 years who lived in snowy-cold regions. Participants completed measures of exercise satisfaction, frailty, quality of life (QOL), and cardiovascular health study during the winter and spring of 2019, with a follow-up measure in 2022 to assess care needs.

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Article Synopsis
  • Genetic factors, particularly Polygenic Risk Scores (PRSs), influence the likelihood of developing schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD), with findings showing that SZ risk groups exhibit significant cognitive impairments.
  • Epigenome-wide association studies (EWASs) revealed numerous differentially methylated positions (DMPs) related to SZ in blood samples, highlighting a stark contrast between genetic SZ risk patients and those with lower genetic risks.
  • DNA Methylation Risk Scores (MRSs) for SZ were notably higher in SZ patients compared to healthy controls, especially among those with elevated genetic SZ risk, suggesting a potential epigenetic link to the disorder's pathogenesis.
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Patients with chronic pain are affected psychologically and socially. There are also individual differences in treatment efficacy. Insufficient research has been conducted on genetic polymorphisms that are related to individual differences in the susceptibility to chronic pain.

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  • Individual differences in postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) led to a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 806 patients who underwent elective surgery with general anesthesia.
  • The study identified specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), such as rs2776262 and rs140703637, linked to increased nausea, as well as additional SNPs for patients who received propofol.
  • Findings may help predict those at risk for PONV and improve prophylactic treatments in the future.
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Aims: Cigarette smoking is a preventable risk factor for various diseases such as cancer, ischemic stroke, cardiac stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Smoking cessation is of great importance not only for individual smokers but also for social health. Regarding current cessation therapies, the effectiveness of nicotine replacement is limited, and the cost of varenicline medication is considerable.

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Phantom tooth pain (PTP) is a rare and specific neuropathic pain that occurs after pulpectomy and tooth extraction, but its cause is not understood. We hypothesized that there is a genetic contribution to PTP. The present study focused on the gene, which encodes the α1C subunit of the Ca1.

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  • The study investigates the role of mitochondrial genetic variants in the development of bipolar disorder (BD), schizophrenia (SZ), and psychotic disorders (PSY) in a Japanese population, highlighting that previous research primarily focused on individuals of European ancestry.
  • Using quality control methods, researchers analyzed 45 genetic variants in 420 participants (BD patients, SZ patients, and healthy controls) to identify associations with the disorders.
  • Four specific variants showed significant associations with BD and PSY, particularly the rs200044200 variant, which was found only in BD patients, suggesting mitochondrial dysfunction may play a role in the pathogenesis of these disorders.
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  • * A genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 350 patients undergoing surgery aimed to find SNPs that influence the minimum effective concentration (MEC) of fentanyl post-op.
  • * The study found that the SNP rs966775 was linked to higher MECs of fentanyl, with its minor G allele associated with increased dosages; this has implications for personalized pain management in recovery.
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Chronic pain is reportedly associated with the transient receptor potential canonical 3 () gene. The present study examined the genetic associations between the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the gene and chronic pain. The genomic samples from 194 patients underwent linkage disequilibrium (LD) analyses of 29 SNPs within and around the vicinity of the gene.

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  • * The study identified two specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the ANGPT1 gene, which were significantly associated with the amount of opioids required for pain relief (p < 5.0000 × 10−8).
  • * The results suggest that these SNPs and others could be used as indicators for predicting the effectiveness of opioid treatments in cancer pain management, paving the way for more personalized approaches to pain therapy.
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Background: Individuals with schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) display cognitive impairments, but the impairments in those with SCZ are more prominent, supported by genetic overlap between SCZ and cognitive impairments. However, it remains unclear whether cognitive performances differ between individuals at high and low genetic risks for SCZ or BD.

Methods: Using the latest Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) data, we calculated PGC3 SCZ-, PGC3 BD-, and SCZ BD polygenic risk scores (PRSs) in 173 SCZ patients, 70 unaffected first-degree relatives (FRs) and 196 healthy controls (HCs).

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Considerable individual differences are widely observed in the sensitivity to opioid analgesics. We focused on rs12496846, rs698705, and rs10052295 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the C3orf20, SLC8A2, and CTNND2 gene regions that we previously identified as possibly associated with postoperative analgesia after orthognathic surgery. We investigated associations between these SNPs and postoperative analgesia in 112 patients who underwent major open abdominal surgery in hospitals and were treated with analgesics, including opioids, after surgery.

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Short tandem repeats (STRs) and variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs) that have been identified at approximately 0.7 and 0.5 million loci in the human genome, respectively, are highly multi-allelic variations rather than single-nucleotide polymorphisms.

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Phantom tooth pain (PTP) is a rare and specific neuropathic pain that occurs after pulpectomy and tooth extraction, but its cause is not understood. We hypothesized that there is a genetic contribution to PTP. We focused on solute carrier family 17 member 9 (SLC17A9)/vesicular nucleotide transporter (VNUT) and purinergic receptor P2Y12 (P2RY12), both of which have been associated with neuropathic pain and pain transduction signaling in the trigeminal ganglion in rodents.

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Acute pain that is associated with herpes zoster (HZ) can become long-lasting neuropathic pain, known as chronic post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN), especially in the elderly. HZ is caused by the reactivation of latent varicella-zoster virus (VZV), whereas PHN is not attributed to ongoing viral replication. Although VZV infection reportedly induces neuronal cell fusion in humans, the pathogenesis of PHN is not fully understood.

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Pain sensitivity differs individually, but the mechanisms and genetic factors that underlie these differences are not fully understood. To investigate genetic factors that are involved in sensing cold pain, we applied a cold-induced pain test and evaluated protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR2/F2RL1) and transient receptor potential melastatin 8 (TRPM8), which are related to pain. We statistically investigated the associations between genetic polymorphisms and cold pain sensitivity in 461 healthy patients who were scheduled to undergo cosmetic orthognathic surgery for mandibular prognathism.

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Background: Impairments in intelligence are more severe in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) than in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) despite clinical and genetic similarities between the disorders. Genetic loci differentiating SCZ from BD, that is, SCZ-specific risk, have been identified. Polygenetic [risk] scores (PGSs) for SCZ-specific risk are higher in SCZ patients than in healthy controls (HCs).

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Article Synopsis
  • Chronic pain has a heritability factor ranging from 30% to 70%, suggesting a genetic component to its susceptibility and treatment outcomes.
  • A genome-wide association study (GWAS) with over 700,000 markers across 191 chronic pain patients identified the rs4773840 SNP as significantly associated with postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) and pointed to another gene as linked to chronic pain in trend models.
  • No significant associations were found between genetic variants and the effectiveness of pain medications, indicating that while genetics may influence pain susceptibility, they may not predict drug efficacy.
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Background: Opioids are widely used as effective analgesics, but opioid sensitivity varies widely among individuals. The underlying genetic and nongenetic factors are not fully understood. Based on the results of our previous genome-wide association study, we investigated the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the astrotactin 2 (ASTN2) gene on pain-related phenotypes in surgical patients.

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Patients with schizophrenia display characteristic smoking-related behaviors and genetic correlations between smoking behaviors and schizophrenia have been identified in European individuals. However, the genetic etiology of the association remains to be clarified. The present study investigated transethnic genetic overlaps between European-based smoking behaviors and the risk of Japanese schizophrenia by conducting polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses.

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