Ectopic Breast Cancer Arising within an Axillary Lymph Node

We report our experience with the diagnosis and treatment of an ectopic breast cancer arising within an axillary lymph node. The patient was a 65-year-old woman diagnosed breast cancer and axillary lymph node metastasis. We performed a partial mastectomy and axillary lymph node dissection. Postoperative pathology revealed no malignant lesions in the breast; however, a nodule in one of axillary lymph nodes had mixed benign and malignant components, leading to a diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma derived from ectopic mammary tissue. This case represents a very rare form of breast cancer, and the malignancy was difficult to distinguish from metastasis

Photon Upconverting Solid Films with Improved Efficiency for Endowing Perovskite Solar Cells with Near‐Infrared Sensitivity

Perovskite solar cells have emerged as the next‐generation high‐efficiency solar cell, but their absorption is mostly limited to the visible (vis) range. One possible solution is to integrate near‐infrared (NIR)‐to‐vis photon upconversion (UC). Herein, we show the first example of endowing perovskite solar cells with NIR sensitivity by using solid films showing NIR‐to‐vis UC based on triplet‐triplet annihilation (TTA). A high TTA‐UC efficiency of 4.1±0.3 % at an excitation intensity of 125 W/cm² is achieved by sensitizing a rubrene (acceptor) triplet with an osmium (Os) complex donor having singlet‐to‐triplet (S−T) absorption in the NIR range, and by increasing the fluorescence quantum yield through energy harvesting to a highly fluorescent collector. In particular, our spectroscopic studies indicate that the upconverted acceptor singlet energy is almost selectively transferred to the collector rather than being quenched by the donor. By attaching the TTA‐UC film behind a semi‐transparent perovskite solar cell, a photocurrent generation is observed under excitation at 938 nm

Data on the optimization of behavioral tasks for senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8)

This data article contains the supporting information for the research article entitled “Early onset of behavioral alterations in senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8)” [1]. Senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8), which originally developed from AKR/J mice, shows learning and memory impairments at the age of 8–12 months. However, little information is still available on phenotypical characteristics of younger SAMP8. To fully understand the phenotype of younger SAMP8, we optimized two behavioral tasks for SAMP8. In the object recognition task, 4-month-old SAMP8 made significantly more contacts with the familiar objects compared to age-matched SAMR1, however, distance traveled for both strains of mice were comparable. In the fear conditioning task, conventionally-used CS–US combination failed to induce robust conditioned fear in both strains of mice. Keywords: SAMR1, SAMP8, Memory, Fear conditioning, Object recognitio

Remarkable changes in behavior and physiology of laboratory mice after the massive 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan.

A devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, 2011, followed by several long and intense aftershocks. Laboratory mice housed in the Tokyo, located approximately 330 km south of this earthquake's epicenter, displayed remarkable changes in a variety of behaviors and physiological measures. Although unusual pre-earthquake behaviors have been previously reported in laboratory animals, little is known about behavioral and physiological changes that occur after a great earthquake. In the present study, the effects of Tohoku earthquake on mice behavior were investigated. "Earthquake-experienced" mice displayed a marked increase in food consumption without gaining body weight in response to the earthquake. They also displayed enhanced anxiety, and in a formal fear memory task, showed significantly greater tone- and context-dependent conditioned freezing. Water maze performance of earthquake-experienced mice showed the quicker acquisition of the task, faster swim speed and longer swim distance than the naive mice. Serum corticosterone levels were elevated compared to the naive mice, indicating that the earthquake and aftershocks were stressful for the mice. These results demonstrate that great earthquakes strongly affect mouse behaviors and physiology. Although the effects of a variety of experimental manipulations on mouse behaviors in disease models or in models of higher cognitive functions have been extensively examined, researchers need to be aware how natural phenomena, such as earthquakes and perhaps other natural environmental factors, influence laboratory animal behaviors and physiology

Pavlovian fear conditioning using a weak training protocol.

<p>After conditioning, conditioned freezing to tone and context was sequentially measured in earthquake-experienced (n = 10), naive (n = 7), and non-conditioned naive mice (n = 6). (A) Tone-dependent short-term memory test was carried out 1 h after the conditioning. No differences were found among the three groups of mice before the presentation of the tone. However, the earthquake-experienced mice exhibited significantly higher freezing than non-conditioned naive mice during tone presentation. (B) Tone-dependent long-term memory examined 24 h after the conditioning. Conditioned freezing of earthquake-experienced mice was significantly higher than that of the other two groups of naive mice before and during the tone. (C) Context-dependent long-term memory examined 48 h after the conditioning. Conditioned freezing to context was higher in earthquake-experienced mice than in the other two groups of naive mice. †<i>p</i><0.10, *<i>p</i><0.05, **<i>p</i><0.01 compared with naive and/or non-conditioned naive mice. Error bars indicate S.E.M.</p

Number of mice food consumption and its body weight.

<p>(A) Mean food consumption of 24 earthquake-experienced mice significantly increased after the main seismic event. Since mice were housed in groups of four per cage, mean food consumption was calculated per cage and was regarded as representative value for four mice housed in one cage. Error bars indicate S.E.M. (B) Mean body weight of earthquake-experienced (n = 24) and age-matched naive mice (n = 24). Black arrows in both figures indicate March 11, 2011, when the main seismic event of the Tohoku earthquake occurred. Note that x-axis represents weeks of age and that the data for age-matched naive mice were obtained before March 11, 2011.</p

Number of earthquake and its intensity observed in the Tokyo area during the testing period for naive mice. ^*

*<p>The data relating to the earthquake were obtained from Japan Meteorological Agency. The earthquake greater than intensity scale 2–3 was not observed in this period.</p