• Title/Summary/Keyword: Functional activation

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The Development of Functional Foods Containing Cordyceps militaris

  • Lee, Tae Ho
    • 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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    • 2016.05a
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    • pp.39-39
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    • 2016
  • There is a growing consumer preference for self-medication, which has resulted in the growth of the Korean functional food market to \1.5 trillion in 2014. Functional foods that can modulate immune responses and enhance liver health are in the top 2 product-specific health functional food categories. The aim of this project was to develop and commercialize new health functional foods incorporated with Cordyceps militaris. Cordyceps genus includes about 400 species, many of which have been used as traditional medicines for many years in Asian countries. C. militaris belongs to the class Ascomycetes and has been used extensively as a crude drug and tonic food in East Asia. Owing to the various physiological activities of its main active constituent, cordyceptin, C. militaris is currently being used for multiple medicinal purposes. Recently, many studies have tried to elucidate the pharmacological mechanisms underlying the activities of Cordyceps spp., which include immune activation, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antiviral effects. After continuous attempts and research toward industrialization, C. militaris cultivated using brown rice was developed into a product by a standardized process and mass-cultivating system. It was successfully introduced into the market and was approved as a functional food ingredient for the first time in Korea. Based on this information, C. militaris containing functional food product for strengthening the immune system was released in August 2014 under the brand name "Dongchoong Ilgi." Dongchoong Ilgi is potentially beneficial for improving immune and liver functions and may enhance both the convenience and effectiveness of health functional foods taken by healthy people and patients with minor illness. In addition, the results of our study may be applicable for the development of health functional foods that could lower the risk of diseases such as the common cold and cancer.

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Fibronectin-Dependent Cell Adhesion is Required for Shear-Dependent ERK Activation

  • Park, Heonyong;Shin, Jaeyoung;Lee, Jung Weon;Jo, Hanjoong
    • Animal cells and systems
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.27-32
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    • 2004
  • Endothellial cells are subjected to hemodynamic shear stress, the dragging force generated by blood flow. Shear stress regulates endothelial cell shape, structure, and function, including gene expression. Since endothelial cells must be anchored to their extracellular matrices(ECM) for their survival and growth, we hypothesized that ECMs are crucial for shear-dependent activation of extracellular signalactivated regulated kinase(ERK) that is important for cell proliferation. Shear stress-dependent activation of ERK was observed in cells plated on two different matrices, fibronectin and vitronectin(the two most physiologically relevant ECM in endothelial cells). We then treated bovine aortic endothelial cells(BAECs) with Arg-Gly-Asp(RGD) peptides that block the functional activation of integrin binding to fibronectin and vitronectin, and a nonfunctional peptide as a control. Treatment of cells with the RGD peptides, but not the control peptide, significantly inhibited ERK activity in a concentration-dependent manner. This supports the idea that integrin adhesion to the ligands, fibronectin and vitronectin, mediates shear stress-dependent activation of ERK. Subsequently, whereas antagonists of vitronectin(LM 609, an antibody for integrin ${\alpha}_{\gamma}$/${\beta}_3$ and XT 199, an antagonist specific for integrin ${\alpha}_{\gamma}$/${\beta}_3$) did not have any effect on shear-dependent activation of ERK, antagonists of fibronectin(a neutralizing antibody for integrin ${\alpha}_5$/${\beta}_1$or ${\alpha}_4$${\beta}_1$ and SM256) had an inhibitory effect. These results clearly demonstrate that mechanoactivation of ERK requires anchoring of endothelial cells to fibronectin through integrins.

Effects of Game Based Weight-Bearing Training on Lower Extremity Muscle Activation and Balance in Stroke Patients

  • Yang, Dae-jung;Park, Seung-Kyu;Kang, Jeong-Il;Kim, Je-Ho;Jeong, Dae-Keun;Choi, Jong-Uk
    • The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.264-269
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    • 2015
  • Purpose: The objective of this study was to determine the effects of game based weight-bearing training (GBWBT) on lower extremity muscle activation and balance in stroke patients. Methods: Thirty subjects were randomly divided into two groups: experimental group I (n=15) and control group II (n=15). Each group was provided intervention under two conditions, as follows: in the Game based weight-bearing training (group I), 30 minutes per day, five times per week, with physical therapy for 30 minutes, and in the functional weight-bearing training (group II), 30 minutes per day, five times per week, with physical therapy for 30 minutes The training program was conducted for a period of eight weeks. Subjects were measured on lower extremity muscle (rectus femoris, biceps femoris, tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius) by electromyography and balance by Biorescue. ANCOVA was performed for comparison of lower extremity muscle activation and balance between different intervention methods. All patients were evaluated at baseline and at the end of the treatment protocol. Statistical significance was tested between the patients before and after treatment by t-test. Results: Significant difference in lower extremity muscle activation was observed in experimental group I compared with control group II (p<0.05). Significant difference in balance was observed in experimental group I compared with control group II (p<0.001). Conclusion: Findings of this study suggest that game based weight-bearing training may have a beneficial effect on improvement of lower extremity muscle activation and balance in stroke patients.

Effect of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Applied to the Unilateral Upper Extremity on the Muscle Activation of Contralateral Lower Extremity (펀측 상지에 적용된 고유수용성 신경근 촉진법이 반대측 하지의 근 활성도에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Kyung-Hwan;Park, Ji-Won;Bae, Sung-Soo
    • PNF and Movement
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    • v.4 no.1
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    • pp.9-18
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    • 2006
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) applied to the unilateral upper extremity on the muscle activation of contralateral lower extremity. Twenty-two healthy subjects (mean age of 23.7 years) participated in this study. Method : PNF patterns applied on the unilateral upper extremity in all subjects were the flexion/abduction/external rotation and lifting pattern. The hold and appoximation techniques for the irradiation were applied to end range of both patterns. Muscle activations in four patterns were measured in vastus medialis, tibialis anterior, rectus femoris, and gastrocnemius medial muscles of contralateral lower extremity using surface EMG system. Each EMG value in individual muscle was normalized for maximal voluntary contraction. The data were analyzed by one factor analysis of variance with repeated measure test. Result : There were significant differences in the between-subject effect (muscles) and within-subject effect (patterns) in comparison of muscle activation by application of PNF patterns (p<.05). The irradiation led to higher activation in the flexion/abduction/external rotation pattern than that of lifting pattern in all muscles (p<.05). The approximation techniques revealed more activations than these of hold technique in all muscles (p<.05). Conclusion : These results suggest that the application of PNF patterns to the unilateral upper extremity affect on the muscle activation of contralateral lower extremity and increase according to the intensity of resistance. This mechanism of contralateral effect might provide a help to the development of treatment method for the affected side and functional improvement for the patients who have damages of central nervous system or musculoskeletal problems by orthopedic injury.

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Temperature Dependence of Activation and Inhibition of Mushroom Tyrosinase by Ethyl Xanthate

  • Alijanianzadeh, M.;Saboury, A.A.
    • Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.28 no.5
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    • pp.758-762
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    • 2007
  • A new alkyldithiocarbonate (xanthate), as sodium salts, C2H5OCS2Na, was synthesized by the reaction between CS2 with ethyl alcohol in the presence of NaOH. The new xanthate was characterized by 1H NMR, IR and elemental analysis. Then, the new synthesized compound was examined for functional study of cresolase activity of Mushroom Tyrosinase (MT) from a commercial source of Agricus bisporus in 10 mM phosphate buffer pH 6.8, at three temperatures of 10, 20 and 33℃ using UV spectrophotemetry. 4-[(4-methylphenyl)- azo]-phenol (MePAPh) was used as a synthetic substrate for the enzyme for cresolase reaction. The results show that ethyl xanthate can activate or inhibit the cresolase activity of mushroom tyrosinase depending to the concentration of ethyl xanthate. It was concluded that the enzyme has two distinct sites for ethyl xanthate. The first one is a high-affinity activation site and the other is a low-affinity inhibition site. Activation of the enzyme in the low concentration of ethyl xanthate arises from increasing the affinity of binding for the substrate as well as increasing the enzyme catalytic constant. The affinity of ligand binding in the activation site is decreased by increasing of the temperature, which is the opposite result for the inhibition site. Hence, the nature of the interaction of ethyl xanthate is different in two distinct sites. The binding process for cresolase inhibition is only entropy driven, meanwhile the binding process for cresolase activation is not only entropy driven but also enthalpy driven means that hydrophobic interaction is more important in the inhibition site.

The Reliability and Validity of the Korean Version of Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (한글판 행동활성화 척도의 신뢰도와 타당도)

  • Oh, Ji-Hye;Hwang, Na-Ri;Cha, Yun-Ji;Lee, Eun-Byeol;Choi, Kee-Hong;Seo, Ho-Jun
    • Journal of Korean Neuropsychiatric Association
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    • v.56 no.2
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    • pp.89-97
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    • 2017
  • Objectives The Behavioral Activation of Depression Scale (BADS) has been reported to be a valid tool for assessing the different behavioral aspects of depression, such as activation, rumination or avoidance, and functional impairment. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the Korean version of BADS (K-BADS). Methods A sample of 196 outpatients completed the K-BADS and the data were analyzed for internal consistency and factor structures. An additional 51 outpatients re-filled the K-BADS after two weeks for the test-retest reliability. To test for the validity, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Working Alliance Inventory (WAI), Drug Attitude Inventory-10 (DAI-10), and Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) were administered. Results Internal consistency of K-BADS was good (Cronbach's alpha=0.843) and principal component factor analysis revealed the four-factor structure. The K-BADS showed a reasonable test-retest reliability (r=0.863, p<0.001). The total score of K-BADS correlated significantly with the total scores of the HADS depression (r=-0.694) and HADS anxiety (r=-0.681). No correlations were found between the K-BADS and the K-WAI (r=0.170) and between the K-BADS and the K-DAI-10 (r=0.311). Conclusion The K-BADS is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring the behavioral activation for depression in Korean patients with depressive symptoms.

A Fundamental study on the Characteristics of Zeolite Cement Mortar (제올라이트 시멘트 모르타르의 재료적 특성에 관한 기초 연구)

  • Jo, Byung-Wan;Kang, Suk-Won;Park, Seung-Kook;Choi, Ji-Sun
    • Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.203-209
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    • 2011
  • The cement industry is expected to face a major set-back in the near future due to its large energy consumption and $CO_2$ production, causing global warming. In order to overcome these environmental problems, this research has bee carried out to find a cement substitute material. One possible cement substitute material is Zeolite cement. In this study, the materialistic characteristics of Zeolite cement mortar were evaluated. Natural Zeolite cement mortar was prepared using alkali activation (NaOH) instead of water ($H_2O$) to determine achievable strength and appropriate mixing ratio. Based on the mixing ratio, functional material was added to alkali active agent to harden Zeolite mortar to develop a highly functional construction material. The study result showed that pure Zeolite cement mortar achieved compressive strength of 42 MPa in 7 days depending on the mixing amount of alkaline catalyst and the hardening temperature, showing high efficiency and possibility as a new construction material.

Comparisons of functional brain mappings in sensory and affective aspects following taste stimulation (미각자극에 따른 감각 및 감성적 미각정보 처리과정의 기능적 매핑 비교)

  • Lee, Kyung Hee
    • Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.585-592
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    • 2012
  • Food is crucial for the nutrition and survival of humans. Taste system is one of the fundamental senses. Taste cells detect and respond to five basic taste modalities (sweet, bitter, salty, sour, and umami). However, the cortical processing of taste sensation is much less understood. Recently, there were many efforts to observe the brain activation in response to taste stimulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and optical imaging. These different techniques do not provide directly comparable data each other, but the complementary investigations with those techniques allowed the description and understanding of the sequence of events with the dynamics of the spatiotemporal pattern of activation in the brain in response to taste stimulation. The purpose of this study is the understanding of the brain activities to taste stimuli in sensory and affective aspects and the reviewing of the recent research of the gustotopic map by functional brain mapping.

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Explicit Categorization Ability Predictor for Biology Classification using fMRI

  • Byeon, Jung-Ho;Lee, Il-Sun;Kwon, Yong-Ju
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.32 no.3
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    • pp.524-531
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    • 2012
  • Categorization is an important human function used to process different stimuli. It is also one of the most important factors affecting measurement of a person's classification ability. Explicit categorization, the representative system by which categorization ability is measured, can verbally describe the categorization rule. The purpose of this study was to develop a prediction model for categorization ability as it relates to the classification process of living organisms using fMRI. Fifty-five participants were divided into two groups: a model generation group, comprised of twenty-seven subjects, and a model verification group, made up of twenty-eight subjects. During prediction model generation, functional connectivity was used to analyze temporal correlations between brain activation regions. A classification ability quotient (CQ) was calculated to identify the verbal categorization ability distribution of each subject. Additionally, the connectivity coefficient (CC) was calculated to quantify the functional connectivity for each subject. Hence, it was possible to generate a prediction model through regression analysis based on participants' CQ and CC values. The resultant categorization ability regression model predictor was statistically significant; however, researchers proceeded to verify its predictive ability power. In order to verify the predictive power of the developed regression model, researchers used the regression model and subjects' CC values to predict CQ values for twenty-eight subjects. Correlation between the predicted CQ values and the observed CQ values was confirmed. Results of this study suggested that explicit categorization ability differs at the brain network level of individuals. Also, the finding suggested that differences in functional connectivity between individuals reflect differences in categorization ability. Last, researchers have provided a new method for predicting an individual's categorization ability by measuring brain activation.

Cerebrocortical Regions Associated with Implicit and Explicit Memory Retrieval Under the Conceptual Processing: BOLD Functional MR Imaging

  • Kim, Hyung-Joong;Kang, Hyung-Geun;Seo, Jung-Jin;Jung, Kwang-Woo;Eun, Sung-Jong;Park, Jin-Kyun;Yoon, Woong;Park, Tae-Jin
    • Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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    • 2002.11a
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    • pp.111-111
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    • 2002
  • Purpose: This study is to compare the distinct brain activation between implicit and explicit memory retrieval tasks using a non-invasive blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). Materials & Methods: We studied seven right-handed, healthy volunteers aged 21-25 years(mean;22 years) were scanned under a 1.5T Signa Horizon Echospeed MR imager(GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee, U.S.A.). During the implicit and explicit memory retrieval tasks of previously teamed words under the conceptual processing, we acquired fMRI data using gradient-echo EPI with 50ms TE, 3000ms TR, 26cm${\times}$26cm field-of-view, 128${\times}$128 matrix, and ten slices(6mm slice thickness, 1 mm gap) parallel to the AC-PC(anterior commissure and posterior commissure) line. By using the program of statistical parametric mapping(SPM99), functional activation maps were reconstructed and quantified.

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