Cerebral vessels are functionally and structurally specialized to provide adequate blood flow to brain which shows high metabolic rates. Cerebral hemorrhage or ischemic infarction due to cerebrovascular injury or occlusion can cause the immediate brain damage, and if not treated rapidly, can lead to serious or permanent brain damages, and sometimes life-threatening. Unlike these popular cerebrovascular diseases, there are diseases caused by genetic problems. Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is one of them. CADASIL does not show the high incidence, but it is considered to be significantly affected by regional obstructiveness such as islands and therefore, to be an important genetic disease in Jeju. This paper aims to summarize the possibility of animal model research that can provide preclinical data for CADASIL disease research and to evaluate its applicability in future research plans.

The rate of suicide is the 5th leading cause of death in Korea. Moreover, suicide is the 1st cause of death in from 2nd to 4th decade. In order to treat suicide attempters who have visited the emergency room and to prevent retries, it is necessary to understand the nature of the suicide and to take the right approach. Suicide is more than doubled in women, and retry rates are high among patients with a history of suicide. Suicidal means are throat, fall, gas poisoning, poisoning and drowning. All suicide attempters should suspect and treat cervical spine injury and airway management, and rapid hyperbaric oxygen therapy is recommended for carbon monoxide addicts. Interviewing a suicide attempter requires a sympathetic attitude and examines the underlying depression or adaptation disorders. Interdisciplinary care with mental health departments is necessary, and interventions in emergency roombased suicide attempt management work can be helpful to connect with the community.

Vertigo and dizziness are common symptoms with various etiologies and pathogeneses. Vertigo is an illusion of motion due to disease of the vestibular system, usually a sense of rotation. Dizziness, a term that represents a wide range of non-vertigo symptoms, is commonly associated with non-vestibular disorders including old age, cardiac syncope, orthostatic hypotension, metabolic disease, anxiety, and drugs. Vertigo should be determined whether the cause is central or peripheral. Peripheral vertigo is usually benign but central vertigo is serious and often require urgent treatment. The careful history and detailed physical examinations(pattern of nystagmus, ocular tilt reaction, head impulse test and positional tests such as Dix-Hallpike maneuver) provide important clues to the diagnosis of vertigo. Most of patients have benign peripheral vestibular disorders - vestibular neuritis, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), and Meniere's disease. BPPV is a leading cause of peripheral vertigo and can easily be cured with a canalith repositioning maneuver. In this review, a focus is on the differential diagnosis of common vestibular disorders with peripheral and central causes.

Korean Physicians encounter often the patients with cultural syndromes. This paper surveys those cultural syndromes in Korea, contrasted with those in other countries in five different domains; socio-cultural, sexual, psychological, psychosomatic and religio-spiritual. I discovered three natural consequences if not intervened; 1) healed and readjusted, 2) paradigmatically shifted for the better results and 3) mal-adjustment for the worse. In the hope to let the culture shifted toward better one, I propose to allow our Koreans to be educated, inspired by Park Wansoe's novel; 'Dreaming in an Incubator(꿈꾸는 인큐베이터)'.

First of all, this study shows the legal issues of hospice and palliative care, and the legal basis for lifelong medical practice is generally derived from medical, civil and criminal law regulations, and is applied to patients who are severely ill and dying in principle. In addition, those what is particularly meaningful about hospice and palliative care in terms of legal aspects are discussed the determination of the purpose of care and the provision of medical adaptability and adult guardianship, in particular the legal criteria for the work and status of patient representatives. As such, the purpose of care is to form part of the contract of care and to be agreed between the patient and the physician. In addition, the patient may not write to his/her agent in advance, and the patient may admit discretionary powers to his/her agent, but the patient's will is to be considered. In conclusion, the medical institutional ethics committee should play an active role, especially in the case of no-agents/family or no intention of the patient.

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a principal of mackerel-derived fermented fish oil, increases the proliferation of dermal papilla cells (DPCs) via the upregulation of cell cycle-associated proteins such as cyclin D1 and cdc2 p34, and might promote hair-growth. However, the intracellular mechanisms that underlie the action of DHA in the proliferation of DPCs have not been investigated fully. In this study, we addressed the action mechanisms of DHA to trigger the activation of anagen in DPCs. DHA activated β-catenin signaling by the increased phosphorylation at serine 552 and serine 675 as well as the translocation and accumulation of activated β-catenin into the nucleus. In the other hand, DHA inhibited canonical TGF-β/Smad signaling by the decreased phosphorylation of Smad2/3. Taken together, the results indicate that DHA might stimulate anagen signaling via the activation of Wnt/β-catenin pathway, while the inactivation of canonical TGF-β signaling pathway in DPCs.

The Korea Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention interpreted that recent outbreaks of scarlet fever in Korea since 2011 was resulted from the expansion of scarlet fever notification criteria. To suggest a relevant hypothesis regarding this emerging outbreak, a time series analysis(TSA) of scarlet fever incidence between 2002 and 2016 was conducted. The raw data was the nationwide insurance claims database administered by the Korean National Health Insurance Service. The inclusion criteria were children aged ≤14 years residing in Jeju Province, Korea who received any form of healthcare for scarlet fever from 2002 to 2016. The season was defined as winter (December, January, February; Q1), spring (March, April, May; Q2), summer (June, July, August; Q3), and autumn (September, October, November; Q4). There were seasonal variations with showing peak season on Q1 and Q3. And three phases as 2002 Q2~2005 Q2, 2005 Q2~2009 Q4, and 2010 Q1~2016 Q4 were found between 2002 and 2016. The results from TSA suggested that the recent outbreak of scarlet fever among children in Jeju Province might be a phenomenon from 'unknown birth-related environmental factors' changed after 2010.

Postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is common, although not so well-known variant of cardiovascular autonomic disorder characterized by an excessive heart rate increase on standing. POTS is probably underdiagnosed due to the heterogeneity in both presentation and etiology. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical and autonomic features in patients with POTS. We reviewed the medical records of patients with POTS. Medical records include onset age, sex, presenting symptoms, body mass index (BMI) and prognosis. All patients had an autonomic function and laboratory tests. Ninety-nine patients met the inclusion criteria for POTS (51.5% male; mean±SD age, 20.0±9.7 years; mean±SD, BMI 21.9±3.9). Common presenting symptoms were a brief loss of consciousness, dizziness, blurred vision and headache. Autonomic function tests showed abnormal quantitative sudomotor axon reflex testing in 20 patients of 99 POTS patients. The abnormal post-ganglionic sympathetic sudomotor function is generally considered to reflect a neuropathic form of POTS. In treatments, 83 patients were treated by non-pharmacological management including lifestyle changes and 16 patients required the initiation of pharmacological therapies. Most patients with POTS showed a relatively favorable prognosis. POTS is a chronic disease with a substantial subset of patients recovering within a few years after the initial presentation. Future efforts should focus on better understanding of POTS pathophysiology and designing randomized controlled trials for the selection of more effective therapy.