• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.449-456
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• 2009

Murine Neuro-2a (N2a) cells have been widely used for the investigation of neuronal differentiation, trophic interaction and neurotoxic effects of various compounds and their associated mechanisms. N2a cells have many genomic variations such as gains or losses in DNA copy number, similar to other neuroblastoma cells, and no systematic or high-resolution studies of their genome-wide chromosomal aberrations have been reported. Presently, we conducted a systematic genome-wide determination of chromosomal aberrations in N2a cells using a high-throughput, oligonucleotide array-based comparative genomic hybridization (oaCGH) technique. A hidden Markov Model was employed to assign each genomic oligonucleotide to a DNA copy number state: double loss, single loss, normal, gain, double gain and amplification. Unlike most neuroblastoma cells, Mycn amplification was not observed in N2a cells. In addition, these cells showed gain only in the neuron-derived neurotrophic factor (NF), while other neurotrophic factors such as glial line-derived NF and brain-derived NF presented normal copy numbers. Chromosomes 4, 8, 10, 11 and 15 displayed more than 1000 aberrational oligonucleotides, while chromosomes 3, 17, 18 and 19 displayed less than 20. The largest region of gain was located on chromosome 8 and its size was no less than 26.7 Mb (Chr8:8427841-35162415), while chromosome 4 had the longest region of single deletion, with a size of 15.1 Mb (Chr4:73265785-88374165).

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2016

In fish, light (photoperiod, intensity and spectra) is main regulator in many physiological actions including growth. We investigate the effect of light spectra on the somatic growth and growth-related gene expression in the rearing tiger puffer. Fish was reared under different light spectra (blue, green and red) for 8 weeks. Fish body weight and total length were promoted when reared under green light condition than red light condition. Expression of somatostatins (ss1 and ss2) in brain were showed higher expression under red light condition than green light condition. The ss3 mRNA was observed only higher expression in blue light condition. Expression of growth hormone (gh) in pituitary was detected no different levels between experimental groups. However, the fish of green light condition group was showed more high weight gain and feed efficiency than other light condition groups. Our present results suggest that somatic growth of tiger puffer is induced under green light condition because of inhibiting ss mRNA expression in brain by effect of green wavelength.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 1973

The effect of dietary condition on the acethylcholine and chotinesterase activity in the brain was observed. Rats weighting $120{\sim}130\;gm$ was fed on diets deprived of protein, carbohydrate and lipid, respectively. Experimental terms was devided into 3, 7 and 15 days. The results are summarized as follows: 1. The lipid free diet makes greater contribution to the gain of body weight than the carbohydrate free and protein free diet. 2. The acethylcholine in the protein free diet group is reduced after 7 days and that in the carbohydrate free diet, after 3 days. 3. The cholinesterase activity shows continuing decrease after 3 days by protein free diet, and the other diet groups appear temporal decrease at 7 days and increase, at 15 days. 4. The relation of acethylcholine, and cholinesterase is similar to each other except that of the carbohydrate diet. From the above results, the conclusions are obtained that the protein free diet makes the acethylcholine and cholinesterase activity lower, and the carbohydrate free diet, acethylcholine lower.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.549-555
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• 2007

In order to study cortical properties in human, it is necessary to obtain an accurate and explicit representation of the cortical surface in individual subjects. Among many approaches, surface-based method that reconstructs a 3-D model from contour lines on cross-section images is widely used. In general, however, medical brain imaging has some problems such as the complexity of the images, non-linear gain artifacts and so on. Due these limitations, therefore, extracting anatomical structures from imaging data is very a complicated and time-consuming task. In this paper, we present an improved method for extracting contour lines of cortical surface from magnetic resonance images that simplifies procedures of a conventional method. The conventional method obtains contour lines through thinning and chain code process. On the other hand, the proposed method can extract contour lines from comparison between boundary data and labeling image without supplementary processes. The usefulness of the proposed method has been verified using brain image.

• Annals of Clinical Neurophysiology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.173-181
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• 1999

Eye movements serve vision by placing the image of an object on the fovea of each retina, and by preventing slippage of images on the retina. The brain employs two modes of ocular motor control, fast eye movements (saccades) and smooth eye movements. Saccades bring the fovea to a target, and smooth eye movements prevent retinal image slip. Smooth eye movements comprise smooth pursuit, the optokinetic reflex, the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), vergence, and fixation. Saccades achieve rapid refixation of targets that fall on the extrafoveal retina by moving the eyes at peak velocities that can exceed $700^{\circ}/s$. Various brain lesions can affect saccadic latency, velocity, or accuracy. Smooth pursuit maintains fixation of a slowly moving target. The pursuit system responds to slippage of an image near the fovea in order to accelerate the eyes to a velocity that matches that of the target. When smooth eye movements velocity fails to match target velocity, catch-up saccades are used to compensate for limited smooth pursuit velocities. The VOR subserves vision by generating conjugate eye movements that are equal and opposite to head movements. If the VOR gain (the ratio of eye velocity to head velocity) is too high or too low, the target image is off the fovea, and head motion causes oscillopsia, an illusory to-and-fro movement of the environment.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 2019

Chronic and unpredictable stress can disrupt the female reproductive system by suppression for secretion of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and gonadotrophin, resulted in ovarian malfunction and infertility. In the recent days, kisspeptin has been highly highlighted as a hypothalamic peptide which directly stimulates synthesis and release for GnRH. However, in spite of the key role of kisspeptin in the female reproductive system, little information is still available on the changes of its expression during ovarian cycle under stressed condition. Therefore, we induced chronic and unpredictable stress series to the female mice to analyze kisspeptin expression in the brain and ovary. Stressed mice exhibited changes of behavior and body weight gain during the stress assessment, which suggested that the present stress model in mice was successfully established. In the brain level, kisspeptin expression was attenuated than control. In the ovary level, the stressed mice displayed irregularly shrunk oocytes with broken zona pellucida throughout the follicle stages, pyknotic granulosa cells, decreased number of developing follicles and increased number of atretic follicles than the control. In case of kisspeptin expression in the whole ovary tissue, the expression level was decreased in the stressed mice. In detail, the less intensity of kisspeptin expression in the antral follicles phase was observed in the stressed mice than control mice, indicating that local function of kisspeptin during ovary cycle is highly associated with development of ovarian follicles. We expect that the present study has important implications for the fields of reproductive biology.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.167-174
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• 2017

Based on advances in biotechnology and neuroscience, neuromodulation is poised to gain clinical importance as a treatment modality for psychiatric disorders. In addition to old-established electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), clinicians are expected to understand newer forms of neurostimulation, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS), vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS). Given the growing interest in non-invasive neuromodulation technologies, clinicians may seek sufficient information about neuromodulation to inform their clinical practice. A growing literature suggests that applications of non-invasive neuromodulation have evidence particularly for indications where treatments are currently insufficient, such as drug-resistant depression. However, positive neuromodulation studies require replication, and the precise interactions among stimulation, antidepressant medication, and psychotherapy are unknown. Further studies of long-term safety and the impact on the developing brain are needed. Non-invasive neuromodulatory devices could enable more individualized treatment. However, do-it-yourself (DIY) stimulation kits require a better understanding of the effects of more frequent patterns of stimulation and raise concerns about clinical supervision, regulation, and reimbursement. Wide spread enthusiasm for therapeutic potential of neuromodulation in clinical practice settings should be mitigated by the fact that there are still research gaps and challenges associated with non-invasive neuromodulatory devices.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.263-272
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• 1983

Effects of dietary protein qualify, energy restriction, and subsequent rehabilitation were studied in the weanling rats. Rats were devided into the six experimental diet groups. Rats in AC (casein- containing diet ), AS (soyprotein-containing diet), and AG(gluten-containing diet) group consumed their diets ad libitum, and rats in PC, PS, PG groups were pair-fed in 60% of the of amounts eaten by corresponding rats in the AC, AS, AG groups, respectively. After 3 weeks of nutritional restriction, all rats were switched to the AC diet for 14 days. At the end of restriction period, body weight, weight gain, food intake, and FER were higher in casein- fed rats than other groups of rats. The differences were, however, disappeared with rehabilitation diet, except body weights which were not fully recovered until the end of experiment. The weights of liver, gastrocnemius muscle, kidney, small intestine, spleen, and lung were the highest in the casein group, and the lowest in gluten group at the end of restriction period. The recovery with rehabilitation diet were differ in different organs. The muscle and liver seemed to be the most affected organs by dietary protein quality and energy restriction. There were no differences in brain weights among the experimental groups during the restriction period, however, after 2 weeks of rehabilitation, rats in AC group showed lower brain weight compared to AC and AS groups, and the brain weight of PC group was lower than AC group. Protein contents in liver and muscle showed the same trends as their weights. Gluten-fed rats showed low serum protein concentration, but recovered fully with rehabilitation diet for 3 days.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.565-574
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• 2021

Astrocytes are activated in response to brain damage. Here, we found that expression of Kir4.1, a major potassium channel in astrocytes, is increased in activated astrocytes in the injured brain together with upregulation of the neural stem cell markers, Sox2 and Nestin. Expression of Kir4.1 was also increased together with that of Nestin and Sox2 in neurospheres formed from dissociated P7 mouse brains. Using the Kir4.1 blocker BaCl₂ to determine whether Kir4.1 is involved in acquisition of stemness, we found that inhibition of Kir4.1 activity caused a concentration-dependent increase in sphere size and Sox2 levels, but had little effect on Nestin levels. Moreover, induction of differentiation of cultured neural stem cells by withdrawing epidermal growth factor and fibroblast growth factor from the culture medium caused a sharp initial increase in Kir4.1 expression followed by a decrease, whereas Sox2 and Nestin levels continuously decreased. Inhibition of Kir4.1 had no effect on expression levels of Sox2 or Nestin, or the astrocyte and neuron markers glial fibrillary acidic protein and β-tubulin III, respectively. Taken together, these results indicate that Kir4.1 may control gain of stemness but not differentiation of stem cells.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2003

After the development of two major techniques - SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) and PET (Positron Emission Tomography) to image the human subjects in a three-dimensional direction in the 1980s, many radiotracers have been used for functional neuroimaging. Still it would be very important study to develop selective radiotracers for functional neuroimaging. New radiotracers will help to expand the knowledge of neurotransmitter systems and of the genetic contribution to receptor or transporter availability. Neurotransmitter depletion-restoration studies, the distribution of brain functions and their modulation by neurotransmitter system aid in better understanding and limiting the side effects of drugs used as well as newly developed. In audition, these radiotracers will be thus very useful to gain a better understanding in biochemical and pharmacological interactions in living human. This review mentions the introduction of radioligands for the functional neuroimaging. Although significant progress has been achieved in the development of new PET and SPECT ligands for in vivo imaging of those receptors and transporters, there are continuous needs of new diagnostic radioligands.