The Effect of Cranial Change on Oropharyngeal Airway and Breathing During Sleep

Mandibular micrognathia is one of the characteristics of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of bimaxillary surgery without maxillary advancement on the upper airway using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results of comparing pre- and post-operative finite element model. Seven female patients with jaw deformity, who underwent two-jaw surgery (Le Fort1 osteotomy and bilateral sagittal split ramus osteotomy; BSSRO) were enrolled. Maxillary was moved for correcting occlusal plane and mandibular was moved to advancement. Pharyngeal airway space and breathing during sleep were evaluated, comparing the periods of 2 days before and 6 months after the operation. The cross-sectional area of the level of the hard palate (HP) and the level of the tip of the uvula (TU), and airway volume of total, HP-TU, and TP- the level of the base of the epiglottis (BE) were increased. AI and AHI in 2 days before and 6 months after were decreased. As the result of nasal ventilation condition, velocity of HP and TU in 2 days before and 6 months after were decreased. We think that it was revealed that movement of the maxilla without advancement did not affect to the morphology and function of airway

Diminished Medial Prefrontal Activity behind Autistic Social Judgments of Incongruent Information

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) tend to make inadequate social judgments, particularly when the nonverbal and verbal emotional expressions of other people are incongruent. Although previous behavioral studies have suggested that ASD individuals have difficulty in using nonverbal cues when presented with incongruent verbal-nonverbal information, the neural mechanisms underlying this symptom of ASD remain unclear. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we compared brain activity in 15 non-medicated adult males with high-functioning ASD to that of 17 age-, parental-background-, socioeconomic-, and intelligence-quotient-matched typically-developed (TD) male participants. Brain activity was measured while each participant made friend or foe judgments of realistic movies in which professional actors spoke with conflicting nonverbal facial expressions and voice prosody. We found that the ASD group made significantly less judgments primarily based on the nonverbal information than the TD group, and they exhibited significantly less brain activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex/ventral medial prefrontal cortex (ACC/vmPFC), and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) than the TD group. Among these five regions, the ACC/vmPFC and dmPFC were most involved in nonverbal-information-biased judgments in the TD group. Furthermore, the degree of decrease of the brain activity in these two brain regions predicted the severity of autistic communication deficits. The findings indicate that diminished activity in the ACC/vmPFC and dmPFC underlies the impaired abilities of individuals with ASD to use nonverbal content when making judgments regarding other people based on incongruent social information

Light-induced structural changes and the site of O=O bond formation in PSII caught by XFEL

Photosystem II (PSII) is a huge membrane-protein complex consisting of 20 different subunits with a total molecular mass of 350 kDa for a monomer. It catalyses light-driven water oxidation at its catalytic centre, the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC). The structure of PSII has been analysed at 1.9 Å resolution by synchrotron radiation X-rays, which revealed that the OEC is a Mn4CaO5 cluster organized in an asymmetric, 'distorted-chair' form. This structure was further analysed with femtosecond X-ray free electron lasers (XFEL), providing the 'radiation damage-free' structure. The mechanism of O=O bond formation, however, remains obscure owing to the lack of intermediate-state structures. Here we describe the structural changes in PSII induced by two-flash illumination at room temperature at a resolution of 2.35 Å using time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography with an XFEL provided by the SPring-8 ångström compact free-electron laser. An isomorphous difference Fourier map between the two-flash and dark-adapted states revealed two areas of apparent changes: around the QB/non-haem iron and the Mn4CaO5 cluster. The changes around the QB/non-haem iron region reflected the electron and proton transfers induced by the two-flash illumination. In the region around the OEC, a water molecule located 3.5 Å from the Mn4CaO5 cluster disappeared from the map upon two-flash illumination. This reduced the distance between another water molecule and the oxygen atom O4, suggesting that proton transfer also occurred. Importantly, the two-flash-minus-dark isomorphous difference Fourier map showed an apparent positive peak around O5, a unique μ4-oxo-bridge located in the quasi-centre of Mn1 and Mn4 (refs 4,5). This suggests the insertion of a new oxygen atom (O6) close to O5, providing an O=O distance of 1.5 Å between these two oxygen atoms. This provides a mechanism for the O=O bond formation consistent with that proposed previousl

Cloning and functional characterization of a novel up-regulator, cartregulin, of carnitine transporter, OCTN2

Acetylcarnitine exerts therapeutic effects on some neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s disease. OCTN2 is known as a transporter for acetylcarnitine, but its expression in the brain is very low. To examine a brain-specific transporter for acetylcarnitine, we screened a rat brain cDNA library by hybridization using a DNA probe conserved among an OCTN family. A cDNA homologous to OCTN2 cDNA was isolated. The cDNA encoded a novel 146-amino acid protein with one putative transmembrane domain. The mRNA was expressed not only in rat brain but also in some other tissues. The novel protein was localized in endoplasmic reticulum when expressed in COS-7 cells but exhibited no transport activity for acetylcarnitine. However, when co-expressed with OCTN2, it enhanced the OCTN2-mediated transport by about twofold. The enhancement was accompanied by an increase in the levels of mRNA and protein. When OCTN2 was expressed in Xenopus oocytes by injection of its cRNA, its transport activity was enhanced by co-expression of the novel protein. These data suggest that the novel protein increases OCTN2 by stabilizing the mRNA in endoplasmic reticulum. The protein may be an up-regulator of OCTN2 and is tentatively designated cartregulin

The correlation between TG vs remnant lipoproteins in the fasting and postprandial plasma of 23 volunteers.

BackgroundTwo recent publications report that non-fasting triglycerides concentrations in plasma are more predictive of cardiovascular events than conventional measurements of fasting triglycerides. While these observations are consistent with the previous studies, direct correlations between remnant lipoprotein triglyceride (RLP-TG) and remnant lipoprotein cholesterol (RLP-C), which are also considered to be risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and fasting and postprandial TG have not been investigated.MethodsOn four different days, both fasting and postprandial blood samples were collected from twenty-three overweight to obese men and women at UC Davis and analyzed for plasma concentrations of TG, RLP-C and RLP-TG.ResultsSignificantly higher correlations between plasma TG and RLPs were observed in the postprandial state (RLP-C r2 = 0.85; RLP-TG r2 = 0.92) than in the fasting state (RLP-C r2 = 0.61; RLP-TG r2 = 0.73). The differences in the correlations between the fasting and postprandial TG and RLPs were statistically significant (p < 0.001). The increase of RLP-TG (postprandial RLP-TG minus fasting RLP-TG) consisted of approximately 80% of the total increase of TG (postprandial TG minus fasting TG).ConclusionPostprandial TG vs remnant lipoprotein concentrations were significantly more correlated when compared with fasting TG vs RLP concentrations. The increased TG in the postprandial state mainly consisted of TG in remnant lipoproteins. Therefore, the increased sensitivity of non-fasting TG in predicting the risk for cardiovascular events may be directly explained by the increase of remnant lipoproteins in the postprandial state

Mitral valve nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis: a rare multi-surgery-tolerant survivor of Trousseau’s syndrome

Abstract Background Few previous reports have documented cases of nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis associated with Trousseau’s syndrome for which surgery proved possible for both the primary tumor and the cardiac lesion. The effectiveness of direct oral anticoagulants in patients with Trousseau’s syndrome has also received scant attention. Case presentation A 69-year-old man with repeated episodes of cerebral infarction was diagnosed as having nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis after mitral valve replacement surgery. Stroke recurred preoperatively under apixaban administration. A stomach biopsy also identified gastric adenocarcinoma, and gastric surgery was performed on the 40th postoperative day. The patient was discharged from the hospital and has been free of thromboembolism under a regime of subcutaneous heparin self-injection thereafter. Conclusions We have reported a rare multi-surgery-tolerant survivor of Trousseau’s syndrome in whom subcutaneous heparin injection was useful for preventing thromboembolic events over a long period