Milnacipran affects mouse impulsive, aggressive, and depressive-like behaviors in a distinct dose-dependent manner

Serotonin/noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are widely used for the treatment for major depressive disorder, but these drugs induce several side effects including increased aggression and impulsivity, which are risk factors for substance abuse, criminal involvement, and suicide. To address this issue, milnacipran (0, 3, 10, or 30 mg/kg), an SNRI and antidepressant, was intraperitoneally administered to mice prior to the 3-choice serial reaction time task, residente-intruder test, and forced swimming test to measure impulsive, aggressive, and depressive-like behaviors, respectively. A milnacipran dose of 10 mg/kg suppressed all behaviors, which was accompanied by increased dopamine and serotonin levels in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) but not in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Although the most effective dose for depressive-like behavior was 30 mg/kg, the highest dose increased aggressive behavior and unaffected impulsive behavior. Increased dopamine levels in the NAc could be responsible for the effects. In addition, the mice basal impulsivity was negatively correlated with the latency to the first agonistic behavior. Thus, the optimal dose range of milnacipran is narrower than previously thought. Finding drugs that increase serotonin and dopamine levels in the mPFC without affecting dopamine levels in the NAc is a potential strategy for developing novel antidepressants

Music Therapy Session with Various Elements for Clinical Effects and Comfortable Mood

Integrative Medicine (IM) includes usual Western Medicine (WM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), which can cover a broad area of medical practice. Authors have continued the management of Integrative Medicine Japan (IMJ) and music therapy session for long. For its session, we tried dual tasks of singing and exercise, stimulating the function of tongue, lips, pharynx, and larynx, sign language (SL). There are some kinds of timbre in music, such as tuning fork, music instruments, and electric sound. These groups seem to be adequate for elderly relaxation in sessions, performance in art/culture, and alarm clock buzzer/specific purpose, respectively

Medicine and philosophy with supreme humanity and achievement by great physicians, Schweitzer, Osler and Hinohara

From a medical and human perspective, there are three great physicians, which are Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Sir William Osler and Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara. As common aspects, they had the Christianity circumstances and the experiences with learning art, natural science and medicine. They estimated that medicine has to include the aspects of science and art in certain proportionality. Compared differences between science and art would be as follows: disease vs illness, case vs patient, cure vs care, evidence-based vs narrative-based. Hinohara developed music therapy that combines science and art. This article is expected to become some reference in the future

Future research direction from the perspective of music therapy

Authors and colleagues have continued various activity and research of music therapy in Shikoku Island division of Integrative Medicine Japan (IMJ) for years. There are scientific methods for studying music therapy, in which near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been used for monitoring tissue oxygenation. It would be important to consider the method for not only the quantitative and qualitative research axes, but also the impressions for the music and art from each subject. Among them, Mixed Method Research (MMR) has been applied so far. We expect that further research in various perspectives will be developed in the future

Electroweak axion string and superconductivity

We study the axion strings with the electroweak gauge flux in the DFSZ axion model and show that these strings, called the electroweak axion strings, can exhibit superconductivity without fermionic zero modes. We construct three types of electroweak axion string solutions. Among them, the string with $W$-flux can be lightest in some parameter space, which leads to a stable superconducting cosmic string. We also show that a large electric current can flow along the string due to the Peccei-Quinn scale much higher than the electroweak scale. This large current induces a net attractive force between the axion strings with the same topological charge, which opens a novel possibility that the axion strings form Y-junctions in the early universe.Comment: 35 pages, 8 figures; v3: published versio

Fundamental Sensory and Motor Neural Control in the Brain for the Musical Performance

Music has beneficial power physically and psychologically. Among Integrative Medicine (IM), music therapy (MT) has been useful, and authors have continued research for IM, MT, and piano-playing. Most pianists do not consider the movement of their fingers, because the memorized process is transformed into automatic action. The function may involve the neural signals from the superior parietal lobule to the primary motor area and dorsal premotor cortex, which is called the sensory-motor transformations. The supplementary motor area (SMA) in the frontal lobe seems to be involved in the function of beat-based timing, expression, and activity of musical behavior

Perspectives of the brain mechanism for playing the piano in the light of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

Integrative Medicine (IM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) have been gradually prevalent. Authors are involved in IM, CAM, music therapy and piano-playing. Perspectives of the brain mechanism for piano playing are described. Responsible of area in the brain include primary motor cortex (M1), dorsal pre-motor cortex (dPMC), ventral pre-motor cortex (vPMC), primary somatosensory cortex (S1), superior parietal lobule (SPL), inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Various integrated images and music are created and preserved, and then data will be changed into motion and playing the piano by the mechanism of sensory-motor transformations. Further research development concerning these will be expected

Art Therapy with Interactive Viewing Will Bring Empathy Leading to Health and Care

Integrative medicine (IM) has attracted worldwide attention in recent years. From the perspective of art therapy, there will be some changes in art in hospitals, medicine, medical practice and medical education. Authors have developed art in hospitals using masking tapes. Originally, hospitals and museums have a lot in common. There is professional in the museum, a curator which is from the Latin word curare, meaning care. Through interactive viewing, natural empathy would be obtained for the feelings and thinking of other people. Empathy would be a high-level “caring” in the clinical setting associated with stable logic and objectivit