Neural Sources of Vagus Nerve Stimulation–Induced Slow Cortical Potentials

[Objectives] This study investigated neuronal sources of slow cortical potentials (SCPs) evoked during vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in patients with epilepsy who underwent routine electroencephalography (EEG) after implantation of the device. [Materials and Methods] We analyzed routine clinical EEG from 24 patients. There were 5 to 26 trains of VNS during EEG. To extract SCPs from the EEG, a high-frequency filter of 0.2 Hz was applied. These EEG epochs were averaged and used for source analyses. The averaged waveforms for each patient and their grand average were subjected to multidipole analysis. Patients with at least 50% seizure frequency reduction were considered responders. Findings from EEG analysis dipole were compared with VNS responses. [Results] VNS-induced focal SCPs whose dipoles were estimated to be located in several cortical areas including the medial prefrontal cortex, postcentral gyrus, and insula, with a significantly higher frequency in patients with a good VNS response than in those with a poor response. [Conclusions] This study suggested that some VNS-induced SCPs originating from the so-called vagus afferent network are related to the suppression of epileptic seizures

Epidemiology of Infectious Hepatitis 2nd Report. Epidemic Observation on the Infectious Hepatitis in Akaiwa District (No. 2)

Comparing the epidemic of infectious hepatitis that took place in Toyoda, Onoda, as well as Kumayama in Akaiwa County, during the period ranging from march 1951 to sept. do., with the previous report on the epidemic of malignant hepatitis submitted by february 1951, following results were obtained: 1. Number of patients, 120; total ever since the first. occurence, 213 cases; For the total populace, rate of occurence, Toyoda-39%, Onoda-3.1%, Kama-mura, 2.4%. 2. As for the type of disease. contrary to the previous occasion in which typical form was predominant, this time saw the predominaney of abortive form, of which the mortality rate proved only 0.83%, in comparison to 13.9% estimated in the former time. 3. As for state of starting estimated by month, as previous occasion, maximum occurrence took place in July and August. 4. As for age, showing similar trend as before, 21-30 occupying most cases, evenly has diffused from 10 to 60. There were actually 7 cases that were above 61, which verifies that contamination in old age is not so seldom. 5. As has been in the previous occasion, as to state of contamination, what may be called village infection occupied the majority of cases; where, a special increase of familiary infection has drawn our attention, amounting to the rate of 38.3%, in comparison to former 20.4%, Which, as the infection spread itself, increases in number. 6. Familiary infection may be explained by propagated epidemic form. Its three cases had been delivered. 7. On taking a bird's'-eye-view over the whole area that was infected, the special phase for this season will come under two heads; area in which new patients have emerged around those affected formerly., and the other, which has been contaminated with a fixed current toward areas not yet. infected. The latter is considered to take shift into the former form after a while. 8. Though rare, sporadic infection could be found in this epidemic too, each of which was a case infections being pressed onward into uncontaminated area, and 6 out of 9 cases have become the source for later infection. If theses poradic infections were considered in detail, these would be clear to have a connection with that of epidemic places and also able to come under propagated epidemic form

Epidemiology of Infectious Hepatitis 3rd Report. On the Mass Examination Taken for Shakurenzi Hamlet

The mass examination was carried out in Shakurenji, Kama- Village, Akaiwa Connty, Okayama Pref., where great many deathes have been taken place by infectious hepatitis; results were as follows: 1. 127 persons received the examination; it has covered 94.1% of the entire people. 2. Those who have had jaundice previously were enumerated as 5 cases; as it was just the season when infectious hepatitis was in vogue in other parts of the Prefecture, though slight in degree, it was imagined that probably in the past there might have occurred a few sporadic cases. Among those, 3 were taken record of as new victims of disease, 3. In 6 cases, the patients complained of certain pain, each having some sort of liver disturbance more or less. 4. There were 24 cases in which liver enlargement could be detected; its rate, 18.9%, while splenomegaly been discovered in only one case. 5. Two women in pregnancy were recognized, one sickened case, the other inapparent infection case. 6. As for wide-range judgment taken after the examinaton, must-be-treated case, 5, must-be taken-care-of case 5. inapparent infection 60, 70 in total. percentage of contraction, 55.1%, adding 3 cases starting disease as well as 3 deaths; thus, great total, 76 cases; its rate, 57.1%. 7. Percentage of contraction has proved high in thirties and above 50. By sex, females superseded, but as to age, no definite conclusion could be established. 8. In case those patients exposed would be divided by respective family and investigated, it has been revealed thus: (a) with families which have used a well in common with the family in which death case or at least patient was found, Percentage of contraction has proved high and almost in like degree, since many were adviced to receive treatment, or, be taken care of. (b) Families which employed a well in common, were recognized to have proved about the same ratio in infection, containing not a few ought to be treated or taken care of, which suggests us an infection due to a well. (c) Among the group of families, whose relatives died of this disease, master of the house who had presented himasdlf over the funeral diet has been found to have taken infection alone

Amendment of the Japanese Consensus Guidelines for Autoimmune Pancreatitis, 2013 II. Extrapancreatic lesions, differential diagnosis

Published online: 25 March 2014ArticleJOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY. 49(5):765-784 (2014)journal articl

A System for Worldwide COVID-19 Information Aggregation

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has made the public pay close attention to related news, covering various domains, such as sanitation, treatment, and effects on education. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 condition is very different among the countries (e.g., policies and development of the epidemic), and thus citizens would be interested in news in foreign countries. We build a system for worldwide COVID-19 information aggregation (http://lotus.kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NLPforCOVID-19 ) containing reliable articles from 10 regions in 7 languages sorted by topics for Japanese citizens. Our reliable COVID-19 related website dataset collected through crowdsourcing ensures the quality of the articles. A neural machine translation module translates articles in other languages into Japanese. A BERT-based topic-classifier trained on an article-topic pair dataset helps users find their interested information efficiently by putting articles into different categories.Comment: Poster on NLP COVID-19 Workshop at ACL 2020, 4 pages, 3 figures, 7 table

Combination of gemcitabine and anti-PD-1 antibody enhances the anticancer effect of M1 macrophages and the Th1 response in a murine model of pancreatic cancer liver metastasis

金沢大学疾患モデル総合研究センターBackground Pancreatic ductular adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the most dreadful of malignancies, in part due to the lack of efficacious chemotherapy. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, including anti-programmed cell death 1 (anti-PD-1) antibodies, are novel promising forms of systemic immunotherapy. In the current study, we assessed whether gemcitabine (GEM) combined with anti-PD-1 antibody treatment was efficacious as immunochemotherapy for advanced PDAC using a murine model of liver metastasis. Methods The murine model of PDAC liver metastasis was established by intrasplenically injecting the murine pancreatic cancer cell line PAN02 into immunocompetent C57BL/6J mice. The mice were treated with an anti-PD-1 antibody, GEM, or a combination of GEM plus anti-PD-1 antibody, and compared with no treatment (control); liver metastases, immune cell infiltration, gene expression, immune cell response phenotypes, and overall survival were investigated. Results In the metastatic tumor tissues of mice treated with GEM plus anti-PD-1 antibody, we observed the increased infiltration of Th1 lymphocytes and M1 macrophages. Gene expression profile analysis of peripheral blood cells obtained from mice treated with GEM plus anti-PD-1 antibody clearly highlighted T cell and innate immune signaling pathways. Survival of PDAC liver metastasis mice was significantly prolonged by the combination therapy (median survival, 66 days) when compared with that of GEM alone treatment (median survival, 56 days). Expanded lymphocytes, which were isolated from the splenocytes of PDAC liver metastasis mice treated with GEM plus anti-PD-1 antibody, had an increased number of M1 macrophages. Conclusion The combination of anti-PD-1 antibody immunotherapy with GEM was beneficial to treat a murine model of PDAC liver metastasis by enhancing the immune response mediated by Th1 lymphocytes and M1 macrophages and was associated with CD8+ T cells.