Current status and legal/ethical problems in the research use of the tissues of aborted human fetuses in Japan

To date, there is no law regulating the research use of human aborted fetuses in Japan. The aim was to review the current status with historical background and legal/ethical problems limiting the research use of the tissues of aborted human fetuses. We reviewed literature via PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Japana Centra Revuo Medicina and CiNii, reports from various committees and research groups from Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), and domestic books. Aborted human fetal tissues used for research purposes were first documented in the 1920s. The first guideline, the Peel Code was released in 1972. Since then, in Western countries, the research use of aborted fetuses has been less restricted compared with that of embryos, due to the following guidelines outlined by expert groups. Currently, aborted fetal tissues are commercially available for research purposes in the United States. In Japan, only four indications are presented in “a public statement permitting research use of deceased fetuses' and ‘neonates’ organs, etc.” (1987). In the 2000s, expert committees of the MHLW concluded that research use of human aborted fetuses should be discontinued, and that comprehensive rules and independent regulations should be implemented. This issue has not been discussed in the Japanese legislature since 2003. Establishment of laws and guidelines for this issue is insufficient not only in Japan but also in other countries. It is important to secure transparency for making laws and guidelines and in obtaining public understanding

Clinical Study Immediate Beneficial Effects of Mental Rotation Using Foot Stimuli on Upright Postural Stability in Healthy Participants

The present study was designed to investigate whether an intervention during which participants were involved in mental rotation (MR) of a foot stimulus would have immediate beneficial effects on postural stability (Experiment 1) and to confirm whether it was the involvement of MR of the foot, rather than simply viewing foot stimuli, that could improve postural stability (Experiment 2). Two different groups of participants ( = 16 in each group) performed MR intervention of foot stimuli in each of the two experiments. Pre-and postmeasurements of postural stability during unipedal and bipedal standing were made using a force plate for the intervention. Consistently, postural sway values for unipedal standing, but not for bipedal standing, were decreased immediately after the MR intervention using the foot stimuli. Such beneficial effects were not observed after the MR intervention using car stimuli (Experiment 1) or when participants observed the same foot stimuli during a simple reaction task (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that the MR intervention using the foot stimuli could contribute to improving postural stability, at least when it was measured immediately after the intervention, under a challenging standing condition (i.e., unipedal standing)

The space of non-extendable quasimorphisms

For a pair $(G,N)$ of a group $G$ and its normal subgroup $N$, we consider the space of quasimorphisms and quasi-cocycles on $N$ non-extendable to $G$. To treat this space, we establish the five-term exact sequence of cohomology relative to the bounded subcomplex. As its application, we study the spaces associated with the kernel of the (volume) flux homomorphism, the IA-automorphism group of a free group, and certain normal subgroups of Gromov hyperbolic groups. Furthermore, we employ this space to prove that the stable commutator length is equivalent to the stable mixed commutator length for certain pairs of a group and its normal subgroup.Comment: 58 pages, 1 figure. Major revision. Theorem 1.12 in v3 has been generalized to Theorem 1.2 in the current version: this new theorem treats hyperbolic mapping tori in general cases, and it serves as a leading application of our main theore

Survey on invariant quasimorphisms and stable mixed commutator length

In this survey, we review the history and recent developments of invariant quasimorphisms and stable mixed commutator length.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure; minor revisio