Publications by authors named "Ryuta Kawashima"

Background: Early intervention may prevent maltreatment during infancy. This study examined the effectiveness of interventions initiated during the perinatal period to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Methods: We searched the MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases for articles published before February 2023.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To evaluate the effects of changes in group delay from a click signal to a chirp signal on the 40-Hz Auditory Steady-State Response (ASSR) using magnetoencephalography (MEG).

Design: In this study, each participant was exposed to 10 chirp signals with gradually varying group delays from the CE chirp to the click at 60 dB nHL. The 40-Hz ASSR was measured using MEG and evaluated for amplitude and latency in the maximum signal channel at the click signal measured in each hemisphere.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background/objectives: Opting to perform emotion regulation when facing high-arousal stimuli enhances the reduction in negative emotions. Previous research has indicated that self-choice, that is, personally choosing from multiple alternatives, can improve performance. However, it is unclear whether the emotion regulation strategy chosen among multiple alternatives in daily life enhances stress reduction compared to a forced strategy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Copy number variants (CNVs) are linked to psychiatric disorders and brain structure changes, but the specific gene effects within the CNV regions, like 22q11.2, are still unclear.
  • This study focuses on Tbx1, a gene in the 22q11.2 region, exploring how it influences brain volume and behaviors through a detailed analysis of Tbx1 heterozygous mice using magnetic resonance imaging.
  • Results showed decreased volumes in key brain areas associated with social behavior and learning, while some auditory regions were larger, highlighting the nuanced impacts of Tbx1 on brain structure and function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Traumatic events can cause long-lasting and uncontrollable fear and anxiety. Posttraumatic stress disorder is an intractable mental disorder, and neurobiological mechanisms using animal models are expected to help development of posttraumatic stress disorder treatment. In this study, we combined multiple stress (MS) and longitudinal in vivo magnetic resonance imaging to reveal the effects of long-lasting anxiety-like behaviors on adult male rat brains.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates whether a single session of focused attention meditation (FAM) can prevent state fatigue in healthy participants and examines the underlying neural mechanisms using resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI).
  • Participants were randomly assigned to either the FAM or control group and underwent brain activity assessment during a fatigue-inducing task following a brief meditation session.
  • Results showed that the FAM group maintained their task performance and demonstrated different brain activity patterns, indicating that FAM may enhance neural connectivity and help mitigate state fatigue compared to the control group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The current method for generating an animal model of spinal cord (SC) infarction is highly invasive and permits only short-term observation, typically limited to 28 days.

Objective: We aimed to establish a rat model characterised by long-term survival and enduring SC dysfunction by inducing selective ischaemic SC damage.

Methods: In 8-week-old male Wistar rats, a convection-enhanced delivery technique was applied to selectively deliver endothelin-1 (ET-1) to the anterior horn of the SC at the Th13 level, leading to SC infarction.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Humanness perception, which attributes fundamental and unique human characteristics to other objects or people, has significant consequences for people's interactions. Notably, the failure to perceive humanness in older adults can lead to prejudice. This study investigates the effect of a target's age on humanness perception in terms of two dimensions: agency (the ability to act and do) and experience (the ability to feel and sense).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers explored if brain similarities could predict satisfaction during conversations between strangers.
  • They found that interpersonal similarities in brain activity (measured via fMRI) can effectively forecast how well a face-to-face chat will go.
  • The study suggests both similarities and differences in brain activity play a role in building strong relationships, providing new insights into human interactions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Exercise has significant health benefits and can enhance learning. A single bout of high-intensity resistance training may be sufficient to improve memory. This study aimed to assess memory enhancement by a single bout of high-intensity resistance training and to examine the neural underpinnings using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Pain associated with orthodontic tooth movement reportedly reduces periodontal ligament tactile sensation. However, the mechanism associated with the central nervous system remains unclear. This study was conducted by measuring somatosensory evoked magnetic fields (SEFs) during mechanical stimulation of teeth as they were being moved by separator elastics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Cognitive functions tend to decline with age, impacting daily life, but previous research has suggested that certain spices, like wasabi, may help improve cognitive abilities.
  • This study focused on the effects of 6-MSITC, a compound found in wasabi, on cognitive performance in healthy older adults aged 60 and over through a 12-week double-blinded randomized controlled trial.
  • Results indicated that participants taking 6-MSITC showed significant improvements in working memory and episodic memory compared to those taking a placebo, making it the first study to provide evidence of these cognitive benefits in older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To clarify whether preoperative language magnetoencephalography (MEG) predicts postoperative verbal memory (VM) changes in left mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (LMTLE).

Methods: We reviewed 18 right-handed patients with LMTLE who underwent anterior temporal lobectomy or selective amygdala hippocampectomy, 12 with (HS+) and 6 without hippocampal sclerosis (HS-). Patients underwent neuropsychological assessment before and after surgery.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Many studies highlight that using production, generation, and elaboration can significantly boost memory retention, especially when multiple strategies are applied together.
  • This study focused on whether pairing production with self-generated elaboration further enhances memory compared to using them individually, involving 23 college students.
  • Results showed that the best memory performance came from combining production and self-generated elaboration (condition "Add Aloud"), with brain imaging revealing specific areas activated during this combined encoding strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Attitudes towards individuals with disabilities are generally negative, particularly for those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is often linked to social awkwardness and stigma.
  • This study aimed to explore implicit attitudes toward both ASD and more visibly recognized physical disabilities, analyzing how these attitudes relate to brain activity in the prejudice network.
  • Results indicated that specific brain regions (the right amygdala and right caudate) showed patterns of activation that could predict implicit biases against individuals with ASD and physical disabilities among participating university students.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Mid/late-life cognitive activities are associated with a lower rate of subsequent cognitive decline and lower subsequent dementia risk over time.

Methods: In this study, we investigated the association between adult education class participation and subsequent cognitive decline and dementia risk over time after adjusting for baseline cognitive function and genetic risk of dementia, correcting for several potential confounding variables, using a large prospective cohort data of participants from the UK Biobank study followed from 2006 to 2010.

Results: The results revealed that participation in adult education classes at baseline was associated with greater subsequent retention of fluid intelligence score.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The primary energy source for the brain is glucose, and a continuous supply is required for the brain to work longer. This study aimed to verify the effects of palatinose on attention and cerebral blood flow in healthy adults.

Methods: This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study included 64 healthy Japanese adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Coping with mortality threat, a psychological threat unique to humans and distinct from general emotional distress, is traditionally characterized by immediate suppression and prolonged worldview defense within the framework of the influential terror management theory (TMT). Views regarding the personality-trait concepts for this coping capacity diverge: some favor a broad definition based on general psychological attitudes (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Copy number variants (CNVs), especially those in the 22q11.2 region, are linked to psychiatric disorders and brain structure changes, but the exact relationship between specific genes and these issues isn't fully understood.
  • This study focuses on a gene within the 22q11.2 CNV, suggesting it plays a significant role in social interaction, memory, and cognitive flexibility.
  • Using brain imaging in mice with this genetic variant, researchers found reduced volumes in certain brain areas and linked these changes to difficulties in social interactions, highlighting the impact of genetic loss-of-function variants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Copy number variants (CNVs) are robustly associated with psychiatric disorders and their dimensions and changes in brain structures and behavior. However, as CNVs contain many genes, the precise gene-phenotype relationship remains unclear. Although various volumetric alterations in the brains of 22q11.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Despite the significant health consequences of anxiety, the neural basis of regulation for personal anxious events is not well understood. We examined brain activity and functional connectivity during cognitive emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and acceptance) for personal anxious events. Functional MRI (fMRI) data were obtained while 35 college students were thinking about (the control condition), reappraising, or accepting their own anxiety-provoking situations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Despite the diversity of human behavioral and psychological responses to environmental thermal stress, the major dimensions of these responses have not been formulated. Accordingly, the relevance of these responses to a framework of coping with stress (i.e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Auditory-evoked responses can be affected by different types of contralateral sounds or by attention modulation. The present study examined the additive effects of presenting visual information about contralateral sounds as distractions during dichotic listening tasks on the contralateral effects of N100m responses in the auditory-evoked cortex in 16 subjects (12 males and 4 females). In magnetoencephalography, a tone-burst of 500 ms duration at a frequency of 1000 Hz was played to the left ear at a level of 70 dB as a stimulus to elicit the N100m response, and a movie clip was used as a distractor stimulus under audio-only, visual-only, and audio-visual conditions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Right ventricular failure (RVF) is a leading cause of death in patients with pulmonary hypertension; however, effective treatment remains to be developed. We have developed low-intensity pulsed ultrasound therapy for cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we demonstrated that the expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) in RVF patients was downregulated and that eNOS expression and its downstream pathway were ameliorated through eNOS activation in 2 animal models of RVF.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF