Neuroprotective Activity of Sibjeondaebo-tang on Aβ Peptide-Induced Damages

Background. Sibjeondaebo-tang (SJDBT) has been used to treat diverse disorders including neuropsychiatric disabilities in traditional Korean medicine. Objective. The present study aims to investigate the potential effects of SJDBT on neuroprotection against Aβ peptide-induced damage using in vitro culture and in vivo rat brain systems. Materials and Methods. PC12 cell viability was analyzed by MTT assay, and neurite arborizations and caspase 3 protein signals in cultured PC12 cells and in vivo cortical neurons were analyzed by immunofluorescence staining. Phospho-Erk1/2 protein was analyzed by immunofluorescence staining and western blot analysis. Results. In PC12 cells, atrophied cell body and reduced neurite extension by Aβ treatment were recovered by SJDBT treatment. Caspase 3 protein signals were increased in Aβ-treated PC12 cells, but SJDBT treatment decreased apoptotic cell death. Caspase 3 activation in cortical neurons, which was induced similarly by Aβ treatment, was reduced by SJDBT treatment. Furthermore, phospho-Erk1/2 protein levels, which had been decreased by Aβ treatment, were elevated in the cortical neurons by SJDBT treatment. Conclusion. These data show that SJDBT may play a role in protecting from damages induced by Aβ in neuronal tissue and further suggest that SJDBT can be explored as the potential therapeutic target for AD treatments in human

Tau functions as Widom constants

We define a tau function for a generic Riemann-Hilbert problem posed on a union of non-intersecting smooth closed curves with jump matrices analytic in their neighborhood. The tau function depends on parameters of the jumps and is expressed as the Fredholm determinant of an integral operator with block integrable kernel constructed in terms of elementary parametrices. Its logarithmic derivatives with respect to parameters are given by contour integrals involving these parametrices and the solution of the Riemann-Hilbert problem. In the case of one circle, the tau function coincides with Widom's determinant arising in the asymptotics of block Toeplitz matrices. Our construction gives the Jimbo-Miwa-Ueno tau function for Riemann-Hilbert problems of isomonodromic origin (Painlev\'e VI, V, III, Garnier system, etc) and the Sato-Segal-Wilson tau function for integrable hierarchies such as Gelfand-Dickey and Drinfeld-Sokolov.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure

Treatment-Seeking Behaviors and Related Epidemiological Features in Korean Acne Patients

Little is known about the treatment-seeking behaviors of acne patients, especially Asian acne patients. This study was performed to obtain detailed information about the treatment-seeking behaviors in Korean acne patients. Patients who visited the dermatology departments at 17 university hospitals completed a self-administered questionnaire. Most patients obtained information about acne from doctors or the Internet. The most important criteria for selecting a treatment method or choosing a particular clinic were effectiveness and accessibility. Patients used traditional medicine, visited beauty clinics, drank more water, and used over-the-counter topical agents more frequently than they sought doctors during the worsening period. The degree of satisfaction in treatment was found to depend on the total cost of treatment, number of places visited, site affected by acne, and emotional stress. Those who had experienced a side effect tended to have been treated for longer, to have paid more for treatment, and to have an associated skin disease. Treatments prescribed by dermatology clinics had the lowest aggravating rate, although improvement rates for family medicine clinics were also fairly high. This is the first study to investigate in detail the demographic features and characteristics of the treatment-seeking behaviors of acne patients in Asia

Antioxidant effect of garlic and aged black garlic in animal model of type 2 diabetes mellitus

Hyperglycemia in the diabetic state increases oxidative stress and antioxidant therapy can be strongly correlated with decreased risks for diabetic complications. The purpose of this study is to determine antioxidant effect of garlic and aged black garlic in animal model of type 2 diabetes. The antioxidant activity of garlic and aged black garlic was measured as the activity in scavenging free radicals by the trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) assay. Three week-old db/db mice were fed AIN-93G diet or diet containing 5% freeze-dried garlic or aged black garlic for 7 weeks after 1 week of adaptation. Hepatic levels of lipid peroxides and activities of antioxidant enzymes were measured. TEAC values of garlic and aged black garlic were 13.3 ± 0.5 and 59.2 ± 0.8 µmol/g wet weight, respectively. Consumption of aged black garlic significantly decreased hepatic thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) level compared with the garlic group which showed lower TBARS level than control group (p<0.05). Activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) of garlic and aged black garlic group were significantly elevated compared to the control group. Catalase (CAT) activity of aged black garlic group was increased compared with the control group. These results show that aged black garlic exerts stronger antioxidant activity than garlic in vitro and in vivo, suggesting garlic and aged black garlic, to a greater extent, could be useful in preventing diabetic complications