It remains unclear whether language tasks in one's first (L1) or second (L2) language can cause stress responses and whether frontal, autonomic and behavioral responses to stressful tasks are correlated. In this study, we studied 22 Chinese subjects whose L2 was English and measured the cerebral blood oxygenation in their frontal lobe by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as participants engaged in a mental arithmetic task (MAT) and verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) in L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). To examine the activated cortical areas, we estimated the channel location based on Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) standard brain space by using a probabilistic estimation method. We evaluated heart rate (HR) changes to analyze autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning. We found that the MAT and VFTs induced greater increases in HR than did the control (Ctrl) task. Furthermore, subjects developed greater increases in HR in the MAT and VFTL2 than they did in the VFTL1. Compared with the Ctrl task, the MAT and both VFTL1 and VFTL2 produced robust and widespread bilateral activation of the frontal cortex. Interestingly, partial correlation analysis indicated that the activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) [Brodmann's area (BA) 47] was consistently correlated with the increases in HR across the three tasks (MAT, VFTL2, and VFTL1), after controlling for the performance data. The present results suggested that a VFT in L2 may be more stressful than in L1. The LIFG may affect the activation of the sympathetic system induced by stressful tasks, including MATs and VFTs.

Effects of electric acupunctural stimulation though one hand against reactions in the vascular system in nasal mucosa due to changes in physical position were examined in the present study. The results are as followed;
1) That the reactions in the vascular system in nasal mucosa by changes in physical position indicated a rise in the resistance in the nostril which was made the lower side and a drop in the resistance in the nostril which was made the upper side and that this finding had reproducibility.
2) That no rise in the resistance in the nostril was found out even when the nostril treated in advance with adrenalinon its mucosa was made the lower side in the lateral decubitus, but that the resistance in the untreated nostril (with adrenalin) rose up when it was made the lower side.
3) That the electric acupunctural stimulation through one hand caused no adverse effect upon the rise in the resistance in the nostril on the lower sidle in the lateral decubitus, thought it was the side given the stimulation.

  In our hospital the palliative care committee has been held once a month since 2000. In 2007, a total of 1,583 cancer patients were admitted to our hospital orreceived medical care at home. The average length of hospital stay was 24 days. Of the total number of patients, 88.4% was informed that they had cancer. In the latter half of the year it increased to 92.6% because the palliative caretakers gave doctors accurate information on patients' psychology and social background. In October 2007 a questionnaire survey was conducted on those who visited our palliative care section on the occasion of the hospital festival. A total of 46 responded to our survey about the knowledge of palliative care, physician's precise explanation about the illness, image of opioids, desirable place of death and so on. Twenty-eight respondents (60.9%) did not know anything about palliative care. Forty-four (95.7%) wanted precise explanation of cancer. Thirty-four (73.9%) said they had had a night image of opioids after reading the panel. Twenty-eight (60.9%) responded they would rather stay at home until death. We should give healthy people more information about palliative care and opioids.

It remains unclear whether language tasks in one's first (L1) or second (L2) language can cause stress responses and whether frontal, autonomic and behavioral responses to stressful tasks are correlated. In this study, we studied 22 Chinese subjects whose L2 was English and measured the cerebral blood oxygenation in their frontal lobe by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as participants engaged in a mental arithmetic task (MAT) and verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) in L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English). To examine the activated cortical areas, we estimated the channel location based on Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) standard brain space by using a probabilistic estimation method. We evaluated heart rate (HR) changes to analyze autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning. We found that the MAT and VFTs induced greater increases in HR than did the control (Ctrl) task. Furthermore, subjects developed greater increases in HR in the MAT and VFTL2 than they did in the VFTL1. Compared with the Ctrl task, the MAT and both VFTL1 and VFTL2 produced robust and widespread bilateral activation of the frontal cortex. Interestingly, partial correlation analysis indicated that the activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) [Brodmann's area (BA) 47] was consistently correlated with the increases in HR across the three tasks (MAT, VFTL2, and VFTL1), after controlling for the performance data. The present results suggested that a VFT in L2 may be more stressful than in L1. The LIFG may affect the activation of the sympathetic system induced by stressful tasks, including MATs and VFTs.
Adult ; Autonomic Nervous System ; physiology ; Brain Mapping ; methods ; Female ; Functional Laterality ; Heart Rate ; physiology ; Humans ; Language ; Male ; Oxyhemoglobins ; metabolism ; Prefrontal Cortex ; metabolism ; physiology ; Psychomotor Performance ; physiology ; Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared ; methods ; Stress, Psychological

Prevalence of age-dependent diseases such as asthma is confounded not only by aging effects but also by cohort and period effects. Age-period-cohort (APC) analysis is commonly performed to isolate the effects of these three factors from two-way tables of prevalence by age and birth cohort. However, APC analysis suffers from technical difficulties such as non-identifiability problems. We isolated the effects of these three factors in a step-by-step manner by analyzing Japan's school health data collected from 1984 to 2004 focusing on asthma prevalence among school children aged 6-17 years consisting of 30 birth cohorts (entering classes). We verified the accuracy of our method showing high agreement of the observed age-, period- and cohort-specific data and the data predicted by our method. The aging effects were found to follow cubic equations whose multinomial coefficients were determined by an optimization technique. The obtained aging effect curves of age-specific asthma prevalence showed that boys reach the peak prevalence at 13 and girls at 14, declining markedly afterward. The cohort effects, defined as the arithmetic asthma prevalence means for ages 6-17 years, showed consistent upward trends for the 30 birth cohorts born in 1968-97 for both sexes. The period effects showed a consistent decline since 1984 but abruptly increased in 1999 and then declined again. We were not able to identify the exact cause of the increase in 1999, therefore, this should be examined in the future studies. Because the cohort effects show no sign of leveling off yet, asthma prevalence will likely increase in the foreseeable future.