Effect of aerobic leg exercise training on subcutaneous adipose tissue of thigh in young Japanese women.

A one-legged training model was adopted to assess the influence of moderate-intensity exercise training on subcutaneous adipose tissue, especially focusing on the trained limb. Eight young sedentary Japanese women (ages 21-23 yr) participated in a 12-week training program. The leg was assigned randomly to trained or untrained limb.

Human adductor muscles atrophy after short duration of unweighting.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of 20 days of bed rest (BR) on the physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA) of the adductor (AD) muscle group. Five healthy men and five healthy women were kept on a horizontal bed for 20 days. To calculate the PCSA of the AD muscle group, transaxial magnetic resonance imaging of the right thigh was acquired four times for each of the subjects: (1) pre BR, (2) on the tenth day of BR, (3) post BR, and (4) 1 month after BR.

Determination of normal ranges of mitochondrial respiratory activities by mtDNA transfer from 54 Human subjects to mtDNA-less HeLa cells for identification of the pathogenicities of mutated mtDNAs.

To determine the pathogenicities of mutated mtDNAs in patients with respiration defects, the possible involvement of nuclear DNA mutations has to be excluded, since respiratory function is controlled by both nuclear DNA and mtDNA. This was achieved by showing that the mutated mtDNAs and respiration defects were co-transferred from patients to mtDNA-less human cells, and the resultant cybrid clones carrying mutated mtDNAs expressed respiration defects. To decide whether the cybrid clones expressed respiration defects, in this study the lowest limits of normal respiratory function were evaluated by transfer of mtDNAs from 54 normal subjects to mtDNA-less HeLa cells.

Short-term creatine supplementation does not improve muscle activation or sprint performance in humans.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of short-term creatine (Cr) supplementation on exercise-induced transverse relaxation time (T2) and sprint performance during maximum intermittent cycling exercise using the muscle functional magnetic resonance imaging (mfMRI) technique. Twelve men were divided into a Cr supplementation group [the Cr group, taking 4 x (5 g Cr monohydrate + 2.5 g maltodextrin)/day], or a placebo supplementation group (the P group, taking 4 x 7.

Coactivation pattern in human quadriceps during isokinetic knee-extension by muscle functional MRI.

We tested activation patterns of individual muscles and neuromuscular compartments (NMCs) of the quadriceps femoris (QF) during knee-extension exercises (KEE). Eight healthy men performed repetitive isokinetic KEE at 120 degrees s(-1). Before and after KEE, muscle functional magnetic resonance images of the thigh were taken to calculate transverse relaxation times (T2) for the individual muscles of the QF.

Muscle architectural characteristics in women aged 20-79 years.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the muscle architectural characteristics, i.e., muscle thickness, pennation angle, and fascicle length, in women aged 20-79 yr.

Determinants for stair climbing by elderly from muscle morphology.

The relationship between muscle cross-sectional area (CSA) of the hip joint and lower extremities and speed of stair ascent/descent was investigated in a sample of 127 elderly women (ages: 60-70 years old). The participants performed ascent and descent of stairs with 12 steps for which the speeds for ascent and descent separately from video film were calculated. The ascent speed significantly correlated with CSAs of knee extensor (r=.