<Study 2> Saccadic eye movements and regional cerebral blood flow in schizophrenic patients.

This study examined tracking eye movements on predetermined stationary targets inpatients with schizophrenia spectrum dis order.The targets were 8 black points or 8 arabics\u27 numbered points placed on the circumference of a circle.Self-paced eye movements during clockwise tracking of these points by 23 patients and 23 normal controls were recorded using an infrared eye-mark recorder.Eye movements were an alyzed at two settings : first, when "fixation point" was defined as a point at which a gaze was held for at least 200 msec, and second, when held for at least 100 msec.The results indicated that at the 200 msec setting schizophrenic patients track with significantly fewer correct scores and more deviant scores than controls under black-point conditions.At the 100-msec setting, however, the correct scores of the patients were not significantly different from those of the controls, although the patients displayed more aberrant paths than the controls.The superfluous fixations in the patients improved significantly under numbered-point conditions, but patients still achieved lower correct scores than the controls. Four of the 23 patients exhibited centering (aberrant path directed toward the center point), suggesting immature control of eye movements under black-point conditions but not numbered-point conditions.These results suggest that some schizophrenic patients viewed the targets too quickly and that they have impaired directed attention, which can be improved by cues, and may have impaired preprogramming of eye movements, which is not improved by external cues.This study examined saccadic eye movements using simple stationary targets, in schizophrenic patients.The targets were 8 black points or 8 arabic-numbered points placed in randomized order on the circumference of a circle.Self-paced eye movements during clockwise tracking of these points, by 23 patients and 23 controls, were recorded using an infrared eye-mark recorder.Then the relationship between the saccades and clinical syndromes was investigated. Finally, the relationship between the performance of the saccades and resting regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was examined using single photon emission computed tomography with 99mTc-hexamethyl propyleneamine oxime (HMPAO).The results indicate that patients track with significantly fewer correct scores and more deviant scores than controls, in agreement with our previous study.There were two groups of patients : an ordinary group who obtained a full target hitting score at a 200 ms setting and a fast group who obtained the full score at 100 ms but not at 200 ms.Some patients displayed significantly more hypermetria than controls.Significant correlations were found between alienation syndrome (auditory hallucination and disturbance of the self) and correct scores, or delusion syndrome and deviant score.With respect to relative rCBF, fast group patients showed significantly decreased rCBF in the left limbic and inferior parietal areas as compared with ordinary group patients.These findings suggest that some schizophrenic patients view the stationary targets too fast and this may be related to dysfunction in the limbic-parietal association area in the left hemisphere.富山医科薬科大学・博士(医学)・乙第283号・松井三枝・1995/6/28富山医科薬科大

Immortalization of Cells from Brains Derived from a Strain (MSM/MSfB6C3F1) of Wild Mouse

Escape from cellular aging is the rate-limiting step of multistep carcinogenesis. While normal human cells invariably undergo cellular aging and almost never spontaneously immortalize, cells derived from rodents such as mice are relatively easily immortalized. In this experiment, we studied the immortalization patterns of cells obtained from brain tissues of an inbred strain (MSM/MSfB6C3F1) derived from wild mice. We established 12 cell strains derived from 12 mouse brains in order to investigate whether these cells show cellular aging in the same fashion as human cells or whether these cells are immortalized as easily as rodent cells reported previously. As a result, all cell strains were immortalized up to about 200 days in culture. One strain immortalized very early, in the first 50 days, four strains immortalized in the last 200 days, and the other seven strains became immortal between 150 and 200 days in culture. All immortalized cell strains showed varying amounts of chromosome abnormalities, numerically and structurally, but no specific changes related to immortalization were detected. Before immortalization, three types of cells, glial-like, polygonal flat-thin, and fibroblast-like cells, were observed in culture, but after immortalization most of the cultures became fibroblastic. From these results, we concluded that fibroblast-like cells derived from brains of these mice immortalized in like fashion to fibroblasts of other inbred mice.</p

Synthesis and Self-Assembly of Gold Nanoparticles by Chemically Modified Polyol Methods under Experimental Control

In our present research, bottom-up self-assembly of gold (Au) nanoparticles on a flat copper (Cu) substrate is performed by a facile method. The very interesting evidence of self-assembly of Au nanoparticles on the top of the thin assembled layer was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We had discovered one of the most general and simple methods for the self-assembly of metal nanoparticles. The general physical and chemical mechanisms of the evaporation process of the solvents can be used for self-assembly of the as-prepared nanoparticles. The important roles of molecules of the used solvents are very critical to self-assembly of the as-prepared Au nanoparticles in the case without using any polymers for those processes. It is clear that self-assembly of such one nanosystem of the uniform Au nanoparticles is fully examined. Finally, an exciting surface plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomenon of the pure Au nanoparticles in the solvent was fully discovered in their exciting changes of the narrow and large SPR bands according to synthesis time. The SPR was considered as the collective oscillation of valence electrons of the surfaces of the pure Au nanoparticles in the solvent by incident ultraviolet-visible light. Then, the frequency of light photons matches the frequency of the oscillation of surface electrons of the Au nanoparticles that are excited

The ASTRO-H X-ray Observatory

The joint JAXA/NASA ASTRO-H mission is the sixth in a series of highly successful X-ray missions initiated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). ASTRO-H will investigate the physics of the high-energy universe via a suite of four instruments, covering a very wide energy range, from 0.3 keV to 600 keV. These instruments include a high-resolution, high-throughput spectrometer sensitive over 0.3-2 keV with high spectral resolution of Delta E < 7 eV, enabled by a micro-calorimeter array located in the focal plane of thin-foil X-ray optics; hard X-ray imaging spectrometers covering 5-80 keV, located in the focal plane of multilayer-coated, focusing hard X-ray mirrors; a wide-field imaging spectrometer sensitive over 0.4-12 keV, with an X-ray CCD camera in the focal plane of a soft X-ray telescope; and a non-focusing Compton-camera type soft gamma-ray detector, sensitive in the 40-600 keV band. The simultaneous broad bandpass, coupled with high spectral resolution, will enable the pursuit of a wide variety of important science themes.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures, Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation "Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray

The Quiescent Intracluster Medium in the Core of the Perseus Cluster

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe and are still forming. They are thus important probes of cosmological parameters and a host of astrophysical processes. Knowledge of the dynamics of the pervasive hot gas, which dominates in mass over stars in a cluster, is a crucial missing ingredient. It can enable new insights into mechanical energy injection by the central supermassive black hole and the use of hydrostatic equilibrium for the determination of cluster masses. X-rays from the core of the Perseus cluster are emitted by the 50 million K diffuse hot plasma filling its gravitational potential well. The Active Galactic Nucleus of the central galaxy NGC1275 is pumping jetted energy into the surrounding intracluster medium, creating buoyant bubbles filled with relativistic plasma. These likely induce motions in the intracluster medium and heat the inner gas preventing runaway radiative cooling; a process known as Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback. Here we report on Hitomi X-ray observations of the Perseus cluster core, which reveal a remarkably quiescent atmosphere where the gas has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 164+/-10 km/s in a region 30-60 kpc from the central nucleus. A gradient in the line-of-sight velocity of 150+/-70 km/s is found across the 60 kpc image of the cluster core. Turbulent pressure support in the gas is 4% or less of the thermodynamic pressure, with large scale shear at most doubling that estimate. We infer that total cluster masses determined from hydrostatic equilibrium in the central regions need little correction for turbulent pressure.Comment: 31 pages, 11 Figs, published in Nature July

Hitomi (ASTRO-H) X-ray Astronomy Satellite

The Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission is the sixth Japanese x-ray astronomy satellite developed by a large international collaboration, including Japan, USA, Canada, and Europe. The mission aimed to provide the highest energy resolution ever achieved at E  >  2  keV, using a microcalorimeter instrument, and to cover a wide energy range spanning four decades in energy from soft x-rays to gamma rays. After a successful launch on February 17, 2016, the spacecraft lost its function on March 26, 2016, but the commissioning phase for about a month provided valuable information on the onboard instruments and the spacecraft system, including astrophysical results obtained from first light observations. The paper describes the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission, its capabilities, the initial operation, and the instruments/spacecraft performances confirmed during the commissioning operations for about a month

Mechanochemical Synthesis of Functionalized Nano-carbons for Electrochemical Energy Conversion Devices

本研究では、メカノケミカル反応で得られるグラフェン（MSG）について、「①酸素の電気化学反応（酸素還元、酸素発生）に対する活性の向上」と、「②酸素の電気化学反応以外の電気化学反応（グルコース酸化、二酸化炭素還元）への適用」に取り組んだ。その結果、①については、MSGは窒素や硫黄のドープで酸素発生活性が向上すること、そして、酸素還元活性には活性点数が影響するが酸素発生活性には活性点数ではなく活性点の質が大きく影響することがわかった。②については、MSGはグルコース酸化活性を有すること、そして、MSGは二酸化炭素還元活性を持たないが他の材料の二酸化炭素還元活性を補助する機能があることがわかった。Mechanochemically-synthesized graphene (MSG) was investigated as an electrode material for the oxygen reduction/evolution reaction, glucose oxidation and CO2 reduction. As a result, nitrogen and sulfur-doping enhanced the oxygen evolution activity of MSG. Moreover, we found that the surface area is important for the fabrication of MSG with high oxygen reduction activity and that the intrinsic oxygen evolution activity rather than the surface area is important for in the fabrication of MSG with high oxygen evolution activity. MSG showed high glucose oxidation activity. Although MSG itself did not exhibit CO2 reduction activity, it assisted the CO2 reduction activity of other catalysts.研究分野：無機材料化