OBJECTIVE: To retrospectively compare the imaging characteristics of retropharyngeal density and associated findings for Kawasaki disease with those for non-Kawasaki disease, and identify the distinguishing features which aid the CT diagnosis of Kawasaki disease with retropharyngeal low density. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Among the enhanced neck CT performed in children less than 8-years old with clinical presentation of fever and cervical lymphadenopathy over a 6-year period, only cases with retropharyngeal low density (RLD) were included in this study. The 56 cases of RLD were divided into two groups; group A included cases diagnosed as Kawasaki disease (n = 34) and group B included cases diagnosed as non-Kawasaki disease (n = 22). We evaluated the CT features including the thickness of RLD and its extent into the deep neck spaces, as well as soft tissue change in the adjacent structure. We also scored the extent of RLD into the deep neck spaces and the soft tissue changes in the adjacent structure. RESULTS: The thickness of RLD was greater in group A than in group B (group A, 6.0 +/- 2.1; group B, 4.6 +/- 1.5, p = 0.01). The score of the RLD extent into the deep neck spaces was significantly greater in group A than in group B (group A, 2.3 +/- 1.3; group B, 0.8 +/- 1.0, p < 0.01). Also, the score of the adjacent soft tissue changes was greater in group A than in group B (group A, 2.0 +/- 1.1; group B, 1.0 +/- 1.0, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: If children present with fever and cervical lymphadenopathy that display retropharyngeal low density with extension into more deep neck spaces as well as changes in more adjacent soft tissue, the possibility of Kawasaki disease should be considered.
Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Humans ; Lymphatic Diseases/complications/radiography ; Male ; Mucocutaneous Lymph Node Syndrome/complications/*radiography ; Neck/*radiography ; Pharyngeal Diseases/complications/*radiography ; Pharynx/*radiography ; *Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Fukuyama congenital muscular dystrophy is a genetic disease and common in Japan. The typical clinical features are hypotonia with an early infantile onset and severe developmental delay. The diagnosis is based on pathologic evidence of muscular dystrophy revealed by biopsy or an increased serum creatine kinase levels. Involvement of the brain is characterized by abnormal cerebral cortical dysplasia, cerebellar dysplasia, and white matter changes. We encountered a case of Fukuyama congenital muscular dystrophy in which brain MRI findings were typical, and present this case together with a review of the literature.
Biopsy ; Brain ; Creatine Kinase ; Diagnosis ; Japan ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging* ; Malformations of Cortical Development ; Muscle Hypotonia ; Muscular Dystrophies ; Walker-Warburg Syndrome*

Background: Locomotor activity in mice may have an ultradian rest-activity rhythm. However, to date, no study has shown how locomotor activity can be explained statistically using fitted cosine curves. Therefore, this study explored whether the ultradian rhythm of locomotor activity in mice could be analyzed using cosine fitting analysis. Methods: The locomotor activity of 20 male mice under a 12/12-hour dark/light cycle for 2 days was fitted to a cosine function to obtain the best fit. The mean absolute error (MAE) values were used to determine the explanatory power of the calculated cosine model for locomotor activity. The cosine fitting analysis was performed using R statistical software (version 4.1.1). Results: The mean MAE was 0.2944, whereas the mean MAE for integrating the individual analyses in the two experimental groups was 0.3284. The periods of the estimated ultradian rest-activity rhythm ranged from 1.602 to 4.168 hours. Conclusions These results suggest that locomotor activity data reflect an ultradian rhythm better than a circadian rhythm. Locomotor activity can be statistically fitted to a cosine curve under well-controlled conditions. In the future, it will be necessary to explore whether this cosine-fitting analysis can be used to analyze ultradian rhythms under different experimental conditions.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the scanning parameters affecting the apparent sizes of endoluminal lesions of thetracheobronchial tree, as seen on virtual bronchoscopy(VB), and to determine the optimal CT parameters fordemonstrating the real sizes of endobronchial lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Spherical beads of 8 mm - 10 mmdiameter were randomly placed in the airways of fixed pig lung. CT scans were obtained with collimation and pitchof 3 mm/1, 3 mm/1.5, and 5mm/1, respec-tively. Volumetric data were reconstructed with 1mm-, 1.5 mm-, and2mm-collimation for each parameter. VBs were reconstructed with shaded-surface technique and soft tissuealgorithm. A 10mm-sized bead in the trachea and two 8 mm-sized beads in the left main bronchus were selected andtheir longest diameters were measured on VB at varying thresholds from -800 to -2 00HU. RESULTS: When themeasured diameters of beads on VB were recorded as the percentage of real sizes, they were 1) 78.9 %, 77.5%, and73.7% at collimations and pitches of 3 mm/1, 3mm/1.5, and 5 mm/1, respectively; 2) 77.9 %, 76.9 %, and 75.1 % at 1mm, 1.5 mm and 2 mm reconstructions, respectively; 3) 86.2 % / 83.4% / 80.4% / 77.0% / 74.8% / 70.2% / 64.5% atisosurface thresholds of -8 0 0 /-7 0 0 /-6 0 0 /-5 0 0 /-4 0 0 /-3 0 0 /-200HU, re-spectively; 4) 85.6 %, 75.0 %,69.3% at 23 mm, 17 mm and 11mm luminal diameters of lesion location, respectively. CONCLUSION: Overall, thediameters of endobronchial lesions are underestimated on VB. As the isosurface threshold values, collimations,pitches and reconstruction interuals decrease in size, the measured diameters approach to real diameter of thebeads. Beads in peripheral airways appear smaller than those in proximal airways.
Bronchi ; Bronchoscopy* ; Lung ; Phenobarbital ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Trachea

Objective: Data processing in analysis of circadian rhythm was performed in various ways. However, there was a lack of evidence for the optimal analysis of circadian rest-activity rhythm. Therefore, we aimed to perform mathematical simulations of data processing to investigate proper evidence for the optimal analysis of circadian rest-activity rhythm. Methods: Locomotor activities of 20 ICR male mice were measured by infrared motion detectors. The data of locomotor activities was processed using data summation, data average, and data moving average methods for cosinor analysis. Circadian indices were estimated according to time block, respectively. Also, statistical F and p-values were calculated by zero-amplitude test. Results: The data moving average result showed well-fitted cosine curves independent of data processing time. Meanwhile, the amplitude, MESOR, and acrophase were properly estimated within 800 seconds in data summation and data average methods. Conclusion These findings suggest that data moving average would be an optimal method for data processing in a cosinor analysis and data average within 800-second data processing time might be adaptable. The results of this study can be helpful to analyze circadian restactivity rhythms and integrate the results of the studies using different data processing methods.

Background: Dopamine D2 and D3 receptor agonist quinpirole have been tried as one of drug-induced bipolar animal models. An open-field test is used to assess locomotor activity related to anxiety. Not many studies have analyzed the effects of quinpirole dosages on locomotor activity. The purpose of this study was to look at the locomotor activity of quinpirole-injected mice in an open-field test. Methods: The open-field test was used to observe the locomotor activities of 28 mice. Quinpirole was administrated at 0.05-5 mg/kg and normal saline were used as a control. The Mann-Whitney U-test was employed to compare the locomotor activities in the quinpirole and control groups. Results: Quinpirole-induced locomotor activities reduced as time elapsed during the first 30 minutes following the injection in most mice, then increased or fluctuated in the later 30 minutes. As the dosage was increased, there was a stronger initial inhibition, followed by a rapid and further increase in the last 30 minutes. Conclusion This study showed the differential effects of quinpirole-induced locomotor activities depending on dosage, and initial suppression of locomotor activities by quinpirole was observed. Additionally, longitudinal observation of more than 1 hour would be required to look into the biphasic pattern of quinpirole in an animal model.

Objective: Even though studies using machine learning on sleep-wake states have been performed, studies in various conditions are still necessary. This study aimed to examine the performance of the prediction model of locomotor activities on sleep-wake states using machine learning algorithms. Methods: The processed data using moving average of locomotor activities were used as predicting features. The sleep-wake states were used as true labels. The prediction models were established by machine learning classifiers such as support vector machine with radial basis function (SVM-RBF), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), naïve Bayes, and random forest (RF). The prediction model was evaluated by a six-fold cross validation. Results: The SVM-RBF and RF showed acceptable performance within a window of moving average from 480 to 1,200 seconds. The highest accuracy (0.869) was shown by the RF at the interval of 480 seconds. Meanwhile, the highest area under the curve (0.939) was shown by LDA at the interval of 870 seconds. Conclusion This study suggested that the prediction model on sleep-wake state using machine learning could show an improvement of the model performance when using moving average with raw data. The prediction model using locomotor activity can be useful in research on sleep-wake state.

Objective: As dopamine is closely linked to locomotor activities, animal studies on locomotor activities using dopaminergic agents were widely done. However, most of animal studies were performed for a short period that there is a lack of longitudinal study on the effects of dopaminergic agents on locomotor activities. This study aimed to examine the longterm effect of a dopamine D2, D3 agonist quinpirole on locomotor activities in mice using a home-cage monitoring system. Methods: The locomotor activities of Institute Cancer Research mice were measured by infrared motion detectors in home-cages under the 12-hour dark and 12-hour light condition for three days after the quinpirole injection. Quinpirole was injected at a concentration of 0.5 mg/kg intraperitoneally in the beginning of the dark phase. The locomotor activities before and after the quinpirole administration were compared by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and one-way repeated measures ANOVA. Results: After the quinpirole administration, the 24-hour total locomotor activity did not change (p = 0.169), but activities were significantly increased in the 12-hour dark phase sum (p = 0.013) and decreased in the 12-hour light phase sum (p = 0.009). Significant increases in the activities were observed in the dark-light difference (p = 0.005) and dark-light ratio (p = 0.005) as well. Conclusion This study suggests that quinpirole injection entrains the circadian rest-activity rhythm of locomotor activities. Therefore, quinpirole can be a drug that mediates locomotor activity as a dopamine agonist as well as a modulator of the circadian rhythms.

Strongyloides stercoralis is an intestinal nematode that often causes chronic diarrhea and may develop severe complicated form of hyperinfection or disseminated infection in immunocompromised patients. Here, we report a case of recurrent strongyloidiasis presenting with pulmonary and meningeal involvement. A 55-year-old male diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 4 months ago was admitted due to chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain, and weight loss for 2–3 months. He had been treated with albendazole for chronic recurrent strongyloidiasis 13 years ago and again 2 years ago. He developed sepsis of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli on Days 3 and 7, respectively, and then meningitis of E. coli on Day 42. Strongyloidiasis was diagnosed by detection of abundant filariform larvae in sputum specimens on Day 15. He was treated for disseminated strongyloidiasis with albendazole and ivermectin for five weeks until clearance of larvae was confirmed in sputum and stool specimens. Laboratory diagnosis is important to guide appropriate treatment and to prevent chronic and recurrent strongyloidiasis.
Abdominal Pain ; Albendazole ; Clinical Laboratory Techniques ; Diarrhea ; Escherichia coli ; Humans ; Immunocompromised Host ; Ivermectin ; Klebsiella pneumoniae ; Larva ; Male ; Meningitis ; Middle Aged ; Pancreatic Neoplasms ; Sepsis ; Sputum ; Strongyloides stercoralis ; Strongyloidiasis ; Weight Loss

Objective: Ultradian rhythms are biological rhythms with periods of a few seconds to a few hours. Along with circadian rhythms, ultradian rhythms influence human physiology. However, such rhythms have not been studied as intensively as circadian rhythms. This study aimed to identify ultradian rest-activity rhythms induced by the dopamine D2/D3 agonist quinpirole in mice. Methods: We used 10 mice from the Institute of Cancer Research. Quinpirole was administered at a dose of 0.5 mg/kg.We assessed free rest-activity using infrared detectors and conducted wavelet analysis to measure the period and its variation. We also used the paired t test to compare ultradian rhythm patterns. Results: Quinpirole did not significantly change total 24-hour locomotor activity (p = 0.065). However, it significantly increased locomotor activity during the dark phase (p = 0.001) and decreased it during the light phase (p = 0.016).In the continuous wavelet transform analysis, the mean period was 5.618 hours before quinpirole injection and 4.523 hours after injection. The period showed a significant decrease (p = 0.040), while the variation remained relatively consistent before and after quinpirole injection. Conclusion This study demonstrated ultradian rest-activity rhythms induced by quinpirole using wavelet analysis.Quinpirole-induced ultradian rhythms exhibited rapid oscillations with shortened periods and increased activity during the dark phase. To better understand these changes in ultradian rhythms caused by quinpirole, it is essential to compare them with the effects of other psychopharmacological agents. Furthermore, investigating the pharmacological impact on ultradian rest-activity rhythms may have valuable applications in clinical studies.