Promotion of Cognitive Function Maintenance Exercises in the Community: “Brain Wakawaka Club” Activities to Keep the Brain Young

According to estimates by the Japanese Cabinet Office, there will be approximately 6.02 million elderly people with dementia in 2020, and the prevalence of dementia among those age 65 years and above will be very high at 16.7%. Therefore, it is important to prevent dementia in local communities. However, even though exercises for physical strength maintenance are conducted in many local communities, there are very few exercises to prevent declines in cognitive function. Thus, the “Brain Wakawaka Club” makes tours to local communities with the students of the Department of Occupational Therapy, and conducts cognitive function evaluation and maintenance exercises for elderly people. This activity is expected to contribute to the prevention of dementia among the elderly in the community

Distortion of Visuo-Motor Temporal Integration in Apraxia: Evidence From Delayed Visual Feedback Detection Tasks and Voxel-Based Lesion-Symptom Mapping

Limb apraxia is a higher brain dysfunction that typically occurs after left hemispheric stroke and its cause cannot be explained by sensory disturbance or motor paralysis. The comparison of motor signals and visual feedback to generate errors, i.e., visuo-motor integration, is important in motor control and motor learning, which may be impaired in apraxia. However, in apraxia after stroke, it is unknown whether there is a specific deficit in visuo-motor temporal integration compared to visuo-tactile and visuo-proprioceptive temporal integration. We examined the precision of visuo-motor temporal integration and sensory-sensory (visuo-tactile and visuo-proprioception) temporal integration in apraxia after stroke by using a delayed visual feedback detection task with three different conditions (tactile, passive movement, and active movement). The delay detection threshold and the probability curve for delay detection obtained in this task were quantitative indicators of the respective temporal integration functions. In addition, we performed subtraction and voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping to identify the brain lesions responsible for apraxia and deficits in visuo-motor temporal integration. The behavioral experiments showed that the delay detection threshold was extended and that the probability curve for delay detection was less steep in apraxic patients compared to controls (pseudo-apraxic patients and unaffected patients), only for the active movement condition, and not for the tactile and passive movement conditions. Furthermore, the severity of apraxia was significantly correlated with the delay detection threshold and the steepness of the probability curve in the active movement condition. These results indicated that multisensory (i.e., visual, tactile, and proprioception) feedback was normally temporally integrated, but motor prediction and visual feedback were not correctly temporally integrated in apraxic patients. That is, apraxic patients had difficulties with visuo-motor temporal integration. Lesion analyses revealed that both apraxia and the distortion of visuo-motor temporal integration were associated with lesions in the fronto-parietal motor network, including the left inferior parietal lobule and left inferior frontal gyrus. We suppose that damage to the left inferior fronto-parietal network could cause deficits in motor prediction for visuo-motor temporal integration, but not for sensory-sensory (visuo-tactile and visuo-proprioception) temporal integration, leading to the distortion of visuo-motor temporal integration in patients with apraxia

Observation of the acceleration of a single bunch by using the induction device in the kek proton synchrotron

A single rf bunch in the KEK proton synchrotron was accelerated with an induction acceleration method from the injection energy of 500 MeV to 5 GeV.</p

The Structure of Physarum polycephalum Hemagglutinin I Suggests a Minimal Carbohydrate Recognition Domain of Legume Lectin Fold

Physarum polycephalum hemagglutinin I is a 104-residue protein that is secreted to extracellular space. The crystal structure of hemagglutinin I has a β-sandwich fold found among lectin structures, such as legume lectins and galectins. Interestingly, the β-sandwich of hemagglutinin I lacks a jelly roll motif and is essentially composed of two simple up-and-down β-sheets. This up-and-down β-sheet motif is well conserved in other lectins derived from animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses. It is more noteworthy that the up-and-down β-sheet motif includes many residues that make contact with the target carbohydrates. Our NMR data demonstrate that hemagglutinin I lacking a jelly roll motif also binds to its target glycopeptide. Taken together, the up-and-down β-sheet motif provides a fundamental scaffold for the binding of legume lectin-like proteins to the target carbohydrates, and the structure of hemagglutinin I suggests a minimal carbohydrate recognition domain