• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.564-573
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• 2023

Objective: To investigate the feasibility of assessing the viscoelastic properties of the brain using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) and a novel MRE transducer to determine the relationship between the viscoelastic properties and glymphatic function in neurologically normal individuals. Materials and Methods: This prospective study included 47 neurologically normal individuals aged 23-74 years (male-to-female ratio, 21:26). The MRE was acquired using a gravitational transducer based on a rotational eccentric mass as the driving system. The magnitude of the complex shear modulus |G^*| and the phase angle 𝛗 were measured in the centrum semiovale area. To evaluate glymphatic function, the Diffusion Tensor Image Analysis Along the Perivascular Space (DTI-ALPS) method was utilized and the ALPS index was calculated. Univariable and multivariable (variables with P < 0.2 from the univariable analysis) linear regression analyses were performed for |G^*| and 𝛗 and included sex, age, normalized white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volume, brain parenchymal volume, and ALPS index as covariates. Results: In the univariable analysis for |G^*|, age (P = 0.005), brain parenchymal volume (P = 0.152), normalized WMH volume (P = 0.011), and ALPS index (P = 0.005) were identified as candidates with P < 0.2. In the multivariable analysis, only the ALPS index was independently associated with |G^*|, showing a positive relationship (β = 0.300, P = 0.029). For 𝛗, normalized WMH volume (P = 0.128) and ALPS index (P = 0.015) were identified as candidates for multivariable analysis, and only the ALPS index was independently associated with 𝛗 (β = 0.057, P = 0.039). Conclusion: Brain MRE using a gravitational transducer is feasible in neurologically normal individuals over a wide age range. The significant correlation between the viscoelastic properties of the brain and glymphatic function suggests that a more organized or preserved microenvironment of the brain parenchyma is associated with a more unimpeded glymphatic fluid flow.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.713-722
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• 2023

This study was conducted to examine the effects of care farming activities on the brain waves of adults with developmental disabilities from September 2022 to December 2022, with a total of 16 sessions held once a week. For 28 adults with developmental disabilities, 15 participants in the care farm program and 13 participants who did not participate were used as the control group. Before and after the care farming activities, participants' self-esteem, happiness levels, and brain function indices were measured through surveys and electroencephalography (EEG). Consequently, the self-esteem of the participants in the experimental group significantly increased after the activity, and as for the brain function index, the left brain activity index related to stress, attention, brain function, and emotional state increased compared to the control group in the experimental group of adults with developmental disabilities, especially intellectual disabilities. Notably, the effect of care farming activities was greater for women than for men with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, considering the differential effects of care farming activities based on the type of developmental disability and sex, it is deemed advantageous to primarily apply these activities to women with intellectual disabilities in order to maximize the healing effect of care farming.

• The Korean Journal of Rehabilitation Nursing
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.33-41
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• 2017

Purpose: This study is a descriptive study to analyze the relationship between the cognitive function, body image and pain, and the influencing factors on the daily life performance of brain injured patients. Methods: The study subjects were 119 inpatients with brain injury who gave informed consent. The activities of daily living (ADLs), cognitive function, pain and body image were measured by Modified Barthel Index (K-MBI), K-MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination), Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Semantic Differential Method (SDM), respectively. Results: ADLs was significantly associated with body image, cognitive function, and pain. Multiple regression analysis showed that paralysis, consciousness, cognitive function, and pain were significant factors influencing ADLs. Overall, approximately 48% of total variability in the ADLs could be explained by the 4 variables ($R^2=.477$, p<.001). Conclusion: To improve ADLs of brain injury patients, a deeper understanding of paralysis, consciousness, cognitive function, and pain of patients is required and active nursing invention should be conducted.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.63 no.2
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• pp.261-267
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• 2020

Objective : We investigated the effect of hypnotics on sleep quality, cognitive function, and depressive mood in patients with insomnia following brain tumor resection. Methods : From patients who underwent brain tumor resection, we recruited 10 patients with insomnia who received hypnotics for more than 1 week during a 3-week follow-up period (insomnia group). We also recruited 12 control patients with brain tumors but without insomnia (control group). We evaluated sleep quality at baseline and 3 weeks later using the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and investigated cognitive function and depression using the Computerized Neuropsychological Test and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results : At baseline, SSS, ISI, PSQI, and BDI scores were significantly higher and visual continuous performance test (VCPT) and auditory continuous performance test (ACPT) scores were significantly lower in the insomnia than in the control group. Three weeks later, the patients who had received hypnotics had significantly higher ISI, PSQI, ESS, VCPT, ACPT, visual span forward and backward, and visual recognition test scores, and significantly lower BDI scores. Conclusion : Quality of sleep in patients with insomnia following brain tumor resection was initially poor but improved significantly after taking hypnotic medication. Further, the hypnotic medications appeared to contribute to the amelioration of cognitive impairments and depressive moods in patients who previously underwent brain tumor resection. We thus recommend the use of hypnotics for patients with brain tumors with insomnia.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.243-250
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• 2018

This study is a single-group experimental study to determine the effects on self-growth group programs are emotional intelligence and brain function index of Nursing Students. The data were collected between August 22 and September30, 2017. A total of 38 Nursing Students at k city were participated. The collected data were analyzed using frequency, mean and standard deviation, t-test, ANOVAs, and Repeated ANOVA. Self-growth group program showed differences in emotional intelligence over time and Emotional self-understanding showed a statistically significant difference between group and time. The brain function index is no statistically significant difference between group and time but showed a difference in time. The results of self - growing group program has a significant effect on the self - understanding of nursing college students and Brain function index. This study suggests the necessity that the self growth group program for self-understanding, others-understanding, self-opening of nursing students will help improve emotional intelligence.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.5-14
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• 2000

Objective : Somatosensory evoked potential(SSEP) has been known to be a good method for evaluating brain stem function, but it is not sufficient to check the fine changes of cortical functions. A fine change of cortical function can be expressed with somatosensory evoked cortical field potential(SSEFP) rather than general SSEP. To confirm the usefulness of SSEFP for evaluating the cortical function, the authors simultaneously measured SSEFP and the intracranial pressure-volume index(PVI) in kaolin-induced hydrocephalic rats. Method : Hydrocephalus was induced with injection of 0.1ml kaolin-suspended solution into the cisterna magna in 60 Sprague-Dawley rats. The authors measured PVI and SSEFP 1 week after injection of kaolin-suspended solution. To evaluate the severity of induced hydrocephalus, we measured the transverse diameter of the lateral ventricle on the coronal slice of the rat brain 0.40mm posterior to the bregma. Result : The typical wave form of SSEFP in control rats showed a negative-positive complex wave at early latency. In SSEFP of normal rats, N0 is 10.0 msec, N1 15.3 msec, P1 31.2 msec and N1-P1 amplitude $15.4{\mu}V$. As hydrocephalus progressed, the peak latency of N1 and P1 were delayed. In mild hydrocephalus, negative peak waves were split. The N1-P1 amplitude was decreased only in severe hydrocephalus. The changes of the characteristics of SSEFP according to the severity of hydrocephalus were well correlated with the changes of PVI. Shunting normalized the characteristics of SSEFP in relation to ventricular sizes and PVI in hydrocephalic rats. Conclusion : SSEFP may be useful for evaluating the impairment of cortical function in hydrocephalus.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.2788-2808
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• 2023

Brain tumors are one of the most threatening malignancies for humans. Misdiagnosis of brain tumors can result in false medical intervention, which ultimately reduces a patient's chance of survival. Manual identification and segmentation of brain tumors from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans can be difficult and error-prone because of the great range of tumor tissues that exist in various individuals and the similarity of normal tissues. To overcome this limitation, the Amended Convolutional Neural Network (ACNN) model has been introduced, a unique combination of three techniques that have not been previously explored for brain tumor detection. The three techniques integrated into the ACNN model are image tissue preprocessing using the Kalman Bucy Smoothing Filter to remove noisy pixels from the input, image tissue segmentation using the Isotonic Regressive Image Tissue Segmentation Process, and feature extraction using the Marr Wavelet Transformation. The extracted features are compared with the testing features using a sigmoid activation function in the output layer. The experimental findings show that the suggested model outperforms existing techniques concerning accuracy, precision, sensitivity, dice score, Jaccard index, specificity, Positive Predictive Value, Hausdorff distance, recall, and F1 score. The proposed ACNN model achieved a maximum accuracy of 98.8%, which is higher than other existing models, according to the experimental results.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.423-427
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• 2012

Purpose: The cerebellum is a region of brain structure that plays an important role in calibrating two different information of neural signal from descending motor commands and from ascending sensory inputs. Damage of the cerebellum shows a variety of classic motor symptoms such as postural and locomotor dysfunctions. Therefore, we tried to investigate motor function and skill in stroke patients with cerebellar lesions in sub-acute stage, and compare with these functions of patients with non-cerebellar lesions. Methods: Total twelve stroke patients with cerebellar lesion and 130 stroke patients with non-cerebellar lesions were retrospectively recruited in this study. For evaluation of motor strength, Motricity index (MI) for upper and lower limbs was tested. For measurement of motor skill function, the modified Brunnstrom classification (MBC), Manual function test (MFT), functional ambulatory category (FAC), and Barthel index were adopted. Results: In comparison of motor strength and motor skill function between two groups, statistical differences between the two groups were significantly observed only in upper MI and FAC. Although no significant differences were found in other variables, stroke patients with cerebellar lesion had higher scores in lower and total MI, MBC, and MFT, whereas they had lower scores in FAC and Barthel index. Conclusion: Our results showed that stroke patients with cerebellar lesion had greater impact on movement functions related to hand motor and walking ability in activities of daily life, compared with patients with non-cerebellar lesion, in spite of similar degree of motor function and skill between the two different lesioned-groups.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.116-124
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• 2006

Peripheral nerve injuries are a commonly encountered clinical problem and often result in chronic pain and severe functional deficits. At the Dept. of Oriental Rehab. Medicine, we have used for pain control a herbal bath containing the following herbs: Harpagophytum radix, Atractylodes japonica and Corydalis tuber. In the present study, we investigated the effects of this herbal bath on the recovery rate of the locomotor function and the expression of c-Fos in the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vIPAG) region of the brain following sciatic crushed nerve injury in rats. In the present study, characteristic gait change with decreasing of the sciatic function index (SFI) was observed and c-Fos expression in the vIPAG was suppressed following sciatic crushed nerve injury in rats. Immersion into herbal bath enhanced SFI value and restored c-Fos expression in the vIPAG to the control value. These results suggest the herbal bath might activate neurons in the vIPAG, and could facilitate functional recovery from peripheral nerve injury.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.71-79
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to analyze the presence of ipsilesional movement deficit, with segmental performance in each proximal or distal upper extremity. The visuoperceptual complex task of the ipsilesional upper extremity was investigated in patients with unilateral brain damage and a control group of healthy sex-age-matched controls. Tracking movements were tested in the proximal and distal upper extremities. Movements were measured by the accuracy index, which was normalized to each subject's own range of motion and took into account any differences between subjects in the excursion of the tracking target. The findings revealed that stroke patients experienced difficulties with tracking movement of both proximal and distal segments in the upper extremities on the so-called "non-affected side", irrespectively of the extent of patient's age, time since onset, or severity of contralateral upper extremity. Therefore, the unilateral brain damage affected ipsilateral motor function of the proximal and distal upper limbs in the performance of complex motor tasks, requiring central processing and the higher order cognitive function in the integrity of both hemispheres.