• Title/Summary/Keyword: Basic Neuroscience

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BIOLOGICAL STUDIES IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEPRESSION (소아 ${\cdot}$ 청소년 우울장애의 생물학적 연구)

  • Cho, Soo-Churl
    • Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.28-35
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    • 1994
  • Research on biological aspects on adult depression has been subjected to more than 25 years of systematic research, while biologic investigations regarding childhood and adolescent depression are only now being initiated. Although no unifying, explanatory theory of the biologic etiology of childhood depression emerges from the results of studies reviewed above, the findings do support that biological factors may be involved in the genesis of childhood depression. The research reviewed in this paper suggests that age and pubertal factors have major effects in most biological markers of depression. Some of these markers, like sleep EEG and neuroendocrine markers should be broken down by decades during adult life span. Thus, although adult data are very valuable points of departure for biological research on child and adolescent depression, it is very hard to transfer the adult data to prepubertal children and adolescents, ignoring the biological changes that take place in growth and development, pubety and aging. A great deal of work in basic developmental neuroscience remains to be done. It will be crucial for further advances in this field to determine the normal patterns of neurotransmitter interaction in this age group and to study children at high risk for depression. It will be also crucial to use primate models of depressive illness in order to be able to answer the many queations that cannot be investigated in humans for ethical issues. Conclusively, much closer collaboration between developmental and neurobiological and behavioral studies in primates and in humans will be essential for further development.

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Neuroscientific Challenges to deontological theory: Implications to Moral Education (의무론에 대한 신경과학의 도전: 도덕교육에의 시사)

  • Park, Jang-Ho
    • Journal of Ethics
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    • no.82
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    • pp.73-125
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    • 2011
  • This article aims to search for moral educational implication of J. D. Greene's recent neuro-scientific approaches to deontological ethics. Recently new technique in neuroscience such as fMRI is applied to moral and social psychological concepts or terms, and 'affective primacy' and 'automaticity' principles are highlighted as basic concepts of the new paradigm. When these principles are introduced to ethical theories, it makes rooms of new and different interpretations of them. J. D. Greene et al. claim that deontological moral judgments or theories are just a kind of post hoc rationalization for intuitions or emotions by ways of neuroscientific findings and evolutionary interpretation. For example, Kant's categorical imperative in which a maxim should be universalizable to be as a principle, might be a product of moral intuition. Firstly this article tries to search for intellectual backgrounds of the social intuitionalism where Greens' thought originates. Secondly, this article tries to collect and summarize his arguments about moral dilemma responses, personal-impersonal dilemma catergorizing hypothesis, fMRI data interpretations by ways of evolutionary theory, cultural and social psychological theories, application to deontological and consequential theories, and his suggestion that deontological ethics shoud be rejected as a normative ethical thought and consequentialism be a promising theory etc. Thirdly, this tries to analyse and critically exam those aspects and argumentation, especially from viewpoints of the ethicists whose various strategies seek to defeat Greene's claims. Fourthly, this article criticizes that his arguments make a few critical mistakes in methodology and data interpretation. Last, this article seeks to find its implications for moral education in korea, in which in spite of incomplete argumentation of his neuroscientific approach to morality, neuroethics needs to be introduced as a new approach and educational content, and critical materials as well.

Brain Activation in Generating Hypothesis about Biological Phenomena and the Processing of Mental Arithmetic: An fMRI Study (생명 현상에 대한 과학적 가설 생성과 수리 연산에서 나타나는 두뇌 활성: fMRI 연구)

  • Kwon, Yong-Ju;Shin, Dong-Hoon;Lee, Jun-Ki;Yang, Il-Ho
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.27 no.1
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    • pp.93-104
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    • 2007
  • The purpose of this study is to investigate brain activity both during the processing of a scientific hypothesis about biological phenomena and mental arithmetic using 3.0T fMRI at the KAIST. For this study, 16 healthy male subjects participated voluntarily. Each subject's functional brain images by performing a scientific hypothesis task and a mental arithmetic task for 684 seconds were measured. After the fMRI measuring, verbal reports were collected to ensure the reliability of brain image data. This data, which were found to be adequate based on the results of analyzing verbal reports, were all included in the statistical analysis. When the data were statistically analyzed using SPM2 software, the scientific hypothesis generating process was found to have independent brain network different from the mental arithmetic process. In the scientific hypothesis process, we can infer that there is the process of encoding semantic derived from the fusiform gyrus through question-situation analysis in the pre-frontal lobe. In the mental arithmetic process, the area combining pre-frontal and parietal lobes plays an important role, and the parietal lobe is considered to be involved in skillfulness. In addition, the scientific hypothesis process was found to be accompanied by scientific emotion. These results enabled the examination of the scientific hypothesis process from the cognitive neuroscience perspective, and may be used as basic materials for developing a learning program for scientific hypothesis generation. In addition, this program can be proposed as a model of scientific brain-based learning.

Evaluation of Antidepressant Drug Effect in a Depressive Animal Model by Proton MR Spectroscopy (양성자 자기공명분광법을 이용한 우울증 동물모델에서의 항우울제 약물 효능 평가)

  • Kim, Sang-Young;Choi, Chi-Bong;Lee, Sung-Ho;Woo, Dong-Cheol;Yoon, Seong-Ik;Hong, Kwan-Soo;Lee, Hyun-Sung;Cheong, Chae-Joon;Jee, Bo-Keun;Hong, Sung-Tak;Kim, Hwi-Yool;Choe, Bo-Young
    • Progress in Medical Physics
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.95-101
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    • 2008
  • In this study, we observed the alteration of choline signal intensity in hippocampus region of the depressive rat model induced by forced swimming test (FST). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the antidepressant efficacy in the depressive animal model using MR spectroscopy. Fourteen experimentally naive male Sprague-Dawley rats weighting $160{\sim}180\;g$ were used as subjects. Drug injection group was exposed to the FST except for control group. The drugs were administered subcutaneously (SC) in a volume equivalent to 2ml/kg. And three injections were administered 23, 5, and 1h before beginning the given test. 1H MR spectra were obtained with use of a point resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) localization sequence performed according to the following parameters: repetition time, 2500 ms; echo time, 144 ms; 512 average; 2048 complex data points; voxel dimensions, $1.5{\times}2.5{\times}2.5\;mm^3$ ; acquisition time, 25min. There were no differences in NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr ratio between the right and the left hippocampus both normal control rats and antidepressant-injected rats. Also, no differences were observed in NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr ratio between the normal control rats and the antidepressant-injected rats both the right and the left hippocampus. In this study, we found the recovery of choline signals in the depressive animal model similar to normal control groups as injecting desipramine-HCl which was antidepressant causing anti-immobility effects. Thus, we demonstrated that MR spectroscopy was able to aid in evaluating the antidepressant effect of desipramine-HCl.

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Neural and Cholinergic Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Derived from the Human Umbilical Cord Blood (인간 제대혈액에서 유래된 중간엽 줄기세포의 신경 및 콜린성 분화)

  • Kam, Kyung-Yoon;Kang, Ji-Hye;Do, Byung-Rok;Kim, Hea-Kwon;Kang, Sung-Goo
    • Development and Reproduction
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.235-243
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    • 2007
  • Human umbilical cord blood(HUCB) contains a rich source of hematopoietic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial cell precursors. Mesenchymal stem cells(MSCs) in HUCB are multipotent stem cells, differ from hematopoietic stem cells and can be differentiated into neural cells. We studied on transdifferentiation-promoting conditions in neural cells and cholinergic neuron induction of HUCB-derived MSCs. Neural differentiation was induced by addingdimethyl sulphoxide(DMSO) and butylated hydroxyanisole(BHA) in Dulbeco's Modified Essential Medium(DMEM) and fetal bovine serum(FBS). Differentiation of MSCs to cholinergic neurons was induced by combined treatment with basic fibroblast growth factor(bFGF), retinoic acid(RA) and sonic hedgehog(Shh). MSCs treated with DMSO and BHA rapidly assumed the morphology of multipolar neurons. Both immunocytochemistry and RT-PCR analysis indicated that the expression of a number of neural markers including $\beta$-tubulin III, GFAP and MBP, was markedly elevated during this acute differentiation. The differentiation rate was about $32.3{\pm}2.9%$ for $\beta$-tubulin III-positive cells, $11.0{\pm}0.9%$ for GFAP, and $9.4{\pm}1.0%$ for Gal-C. HUCB-MSCs treated combinatorially with bFGF, RA and Shh were differentiated into cholinergic neurons. After cholinergic neuronal differentiation, the $\beta$-tubulin III-positive cell population of total cells was $31.3{\pm}3.2%$ and of differentiated neuronal population, $70.0{\pm}7.8%$ was ChAT-positive showing 3 folds higher in cholinergic population than neural induction. Conclusively, HUCB-derived MSCs can be differentiated into neural and cholinergic neurons and these findings suggest that HUCB are alternative cell source of treatment for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

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Comparison of the Medication Effects between Milnacipran and Pregabalin in Fibromyalgia Syndrome Using a Functional MRI: a Follow-up Study (섬유근통 환자에 대한 Milnacipran과 Pregabalin 약물치료에 대한 기능적 자기공명영상에서의 후속 영향 비교)

  • Kang, Min Jae;Mun, Chi-Woong;Lee, Young Ho;Kim, Seong-Ho
    • Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.341-351
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    • 2014
  • Purpose : In this study, the medication effects of Milnacipran and Pregabalin, as well known as fibromyalgia treatment medicine, in fibromyalgia syndrome patients were compared through the change of BOLD signal in pain related functional MRI. Materials and Methods: Twenty fibromyalgia syndrome patients were enrolled in this study and they were separated into two groups according to the treatment medicine: 10 Milnacipran (MLN) treatment group and 7 Pregabalin (PGB) treatment group. For accurate diagnosis, all patients underwent several clinical tests. Pre-treated and post-treated fMRI image with block-designed pressure-pain stimulation for each group were obtained to conduct the statistical analysis of paired t-test and two sample t-test. All statistical significant level was less than 0.05. Results: In clinical tests, the clinical scores of the two groups were not significantly different at pre-treatment stage. But, PGB treatment group had lower Widespread Pain Index (WPI) and Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) score than those of MLN treatment group at post-treatment stage. In functional image analysis, BOLD signal of PGB treatment group was higher BOLD signal at several regions including anterior cingulate and insula than MLN treatment group at post-treatment stage. Also, paired t-test values of the BOLD signal in MLN group decreased in several regions including insula and thalamus as known as 'pain network'. In contrast, size and number of regions in which the BOLD signal decreased in PGB treatment group were smaller than those of MLN treatment group. Conclusion: This study showed that MLN group and PGB group have different medication effects. It is not surprising that MLN and PGB have not the same therapeutic effects since these two drugs have different medicinal mechanisms such as antidepressants and anti-seizure medication, respectively, and different detailed target of fibromyalgia syndrome treatment. Therefore, it is difficult to say which medicine will work better in this study.

A Systematic Review of Developmental Coordination Disorders in South Korea: Evaluation and Intervention (국내의 발달성협응장애(DCD) 연구에 관한 체계적 고찰 : 평가와 중재접근 중심으로)

  • Kim, Min Joo;Choi, Jeong-Sil
    • The Journal of Korean Academy of Sensory Integration
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.69-82
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    • 2021
  • Objective : This recent work intended to provide basic information for researchers and practitioners related to occupational therapy about Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in South Korea. The previous research of screening DCD and the effects of intervention programs were reviewed. Methods : Peer-reviewed papers relating to DCD and published in Korea from January 1990 to December 2020 were systematically reviewed. The search terms "developmental coordination disorder," "development coordination," and "developmental coordination" were used to identify previous Korean research in this area from three representation database, the Research Information Sharing Service, Korean Studies Information Service System, and Google Scholar. We found a total of 4,878 articles identified through the three search engines and selected seventeen articles for analysis after removing those that corresponded to the overlapping or exclusion criteria. We adopted "the conceptual model" to analyze the selected articles about DCD assessment and intervention. Results : We found that twelve of the 17 studies showed the qualitative level of Level 2 using non-randomized approach between the two groups. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children and its second edition were the most frequently used tools in assessing children for DCD. Among the intervention studies, the eight articles (47%) were adopted a dynamic systems approach; a normative functional skill framework and cognitive neuroscience were each used in 18% of the pieces; and 11% of the articles were applied neurodevelopmental theory. Only one article was used a combination approach of normative functional skill and general abilities. These papers were mainly focused on the movement characteristics of children with DCD and the intervention effect of exercise or sports programs. Conclusion : Most of the reviewed studies investigated the movement characteristics of DCD or explore the effectiveness of particular intervention programs. In the future, it would be useful to investigate the feasibility of different assessment tools and to establish the effectiveness of various interventions used in rehabilitation for better motor performance in children with DCD.