Maintaining concentration on demanding cognitive tasks, such as vigilance (VG) and working memory (WM) tasks, is crucial for successful task completion. Previous research suggests that internal concentration maintenance fluctuates, potentially declining to suboptimal states, which can influence trial-by-trial performance in these tasks. However, the timescale of such alertness maintenance, as indicated by slow changes in pupil diameter, has not been thoroughly investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Clazosentan, a selective endothelin A receptor antagonist, effectively prevents cerebral vasospasm following aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Although various adverse effects have been reported, there have been no specific case reports of clazosentan-associated focal brain edema. This report highlights a rare complication associated with clazosentan treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Lung transplantation is a vital option for patients with end-stage lung disease. However, it faces a significant challenge due to the shortage of compatible donors, which particularly affects individuals with small chest cavities and pediatric patients. The novel approach of cadaveric lobar lung transplantation is a promising solution to alleviate the donor shortage crisis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: High-grade astrocytoma with piloid features (HGAP) is a novel condition introduced in the 2021 World Health Organization classification. Given that it has been recently classified, reports clarifying its clinical features or diagnostic criteria are lacking, especially in cases of atypical presentation. Herein, the authors present a rare case of HGAP with repeated symptomatic hemorrhages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn interconnected group of cortical regions distributed across the primate inferotemporal cortex forms a network critical for face perception. Understanding the microarchitecture of this face network can refine mechanistic accounts of how individual areas function and interact to support visual perception. To address this, we acquire a unique dataset in macaque monkeys combining fMRI to localize face patches in vivo and then ex vivo histology to resolve their histo-architecture across cortical depths in the same individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The number of older people in Japan is increasing more quickly than in other countries; with this aging of society, the number of elderly patients hospitalized for acute heart failure (HF) is also increasing. The treatment and prognosis of acute HF may be changing, but there are insufficient recent data, especially for octogenarian and older patients.
Methods And Results: This study investigated the characteristics and treatment of acute HF patients in Japan.
Background Context: Domino osteoporotic vertebral fractures (OVFs) involve multiple OVFs occurring simultaneously or sequentially, before healing of the initial OVFs. However, the risk factors and long-term clinical outcomes of domino OVFs are unclear.
Purpose: To identify the risk factors associated with domino OVFs and to assess their impact on patients' quality of life (QOL).
Oxidative stress contributes to the loss of skeletal muscle mass and function in cancer cachexia. However, this outcome may be mitigated by an improved endogenous antioxidant defence system. Here, using the well-established oxidative stress-inducing muscle atrophy model of Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) in 13-week-old male C57BL/6J mice, we demonstrate that extracellular superoxide dismutase (EcSOD) levels increase in the cachexia-prone extensor digitorum longus muscle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFungicides undergo rapid metabolism and are excreted in the urine. There are few methods for screening these ubiquitous compounds, which have a high potential for human exposure. High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) is a suitable technique to assess fungicide exposures; however, there is a lack of spectral libraries for fungicide annotation and in particular for downstream metabolites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Lung transplantation (LTx) is a crucial therapeutic strategy for patients suffering from end-stage respiratory diseases, necessitating precise donor-recipient size matching to ensure optimal graft function. While standard allocation protocols rely on predicted lung capacity based on factors such as sex, age, and height, a subset of patients with respiratory diseases presents an additional challenge - thoracic or vertebral deformities. These deformities can complicate accurate volume predictions and may impact the success of lung transplantation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent advances in stem cell research have led to the creation of organoids, miniature replicas of human organs, offering innovative avenues for studying diseases. Kidney organoids, with their ability to replicate complex renal structures, provide a novel platform for investigating kidney diseases and assessing drug efficacy, albeit hindered by labor-intensive generation and batch variations, highlighting the need for tailored cryopreservation methods to enable widespread utilization. Here, we evaluated cryopreservation strategies for kidney organoids by contrasting slow-freezing and vitrification methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the expansion of indications of flow diverter (FD) for cerebral aneurysms, FD placement for posterior communicating artery (Pcom) aneurysms has been approved. However, it is controversial whether Pcom aneurysms should be treated with FD or not. In this study, we report the outcome of FD treatment for Pcom aneurysms in Japan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe human Origin Recognition Complex (ORC) is required not only for the initiation of DNA replication, but is also implicated in diverse cellular functions, including chromatin organization, centrosome biology, and cytokinesis. The smallest subunit of ORC, Orc6, is poorly conserved amongst eukaryotes. Recent studies from our laboratory have suggested that human Orc6 is not required for replication licensing, but is needed for S-phase progression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLung transplant (LTx) recipients face a significant risk from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), with elevated hospitalization mortality rates even post-vaccination. While severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) typically induces pneumonia in even healthy individuals, it can also infect the transplanted lungs of LTx recipients, potentially leading to graft dysfunction. Despite the prevalence of COVID-19 pneumonia in LTx recipients, data on its characteristics and associated risk factors remain limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe reported the main results of the Japanese Registry of Neuroendovascular Therapy (JR-NET) 4, a nationwide surveillance of therapy (NET) in Japan from January 2015 to December 2019. JR-NET 4 registered consecutive patients who underwent NETs by Japan Society of Neuroendovascular Therapy (JSNET) -certified specialists. The primary endpoint was functional independence (mRS score of 0-2) at 30 days post-NET, with secondary endpoints focusing on technical success and major adverse events within 30 days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 41-year-old woman with lymphangioleiomyomatosis developed a bronchial anastomotic stenosis after left single lung transplantation (LTx). A part of the hyperinflated right native lung was excised in an attempt to remedy the left lung compression, which appeared to affect the bronchial anastomotic stenosis and ventilation/perfusion mismatch. However, a persistent air leak after the surgery caused empyema and an open window thoracotomy (OWT) was performed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Nutritional scores have been reported to be useful prognostic factors for various cancers. This study evaluated the usefulness of the preoperative controlling nutritional status (CONUT) score as a predictor of recurrence of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Methods: The present study included 422 patients with stage I-IIIA NSCLC who underwent complete resection at Tohoku University Hospital between January 2010 and December 2016.
Purpose: This single-institution retrospective cohort study was conducted to assess the prognostic significance of perioperative changes in the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) in patients who underwent surgery for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Methods: Clinicopathological data were collected from 441 patients who underwent lobectomy for NSCLC between 2010 and 2016.The PNI ratio (postoperative PNI/preoperative PNI) was used as an indicator of perioperative PNI changes.
Background: Interstitial lung disease (ILD) represents a heterogeneous group of lung disorders characterized by fibrotic lung tissue changes. In regions with severe donor shortages, single-lung transplantation (SLTx) is often preferred over bilateral lung transplantation for advanced ILD. However, temporal changes and complications in the retained native lung remain poorly understood.
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