BACKGROUND: A deletion (D)/insertion (I) polymorphism of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene is known to be associated with hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy, myocardial infarction. Cardiac diseases, such as atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, myocardiac infarction and coronary artery disease have been clearly associated with increasing the risk of ischemic stroke. We investigated the relationship between ACE gene deletion/insertion (D/I) polymorphism and the pattern of ischemic stroke. METHODS: The pattern of ACE genotypes in 59 stroke patients including symptomatic carotid artery territory cerebral ischemia were compared with 101 age-matched control subjects. In the stroke patients, the degrees of stenosis of bilateral cervical carotid arteries and their major intracranial tributaries were recorded according to duplex neck sonography and magnetic resonance angiography. DNA was extracted from peripheral blood and ACE I/D polymorphism is confirmed by PCR method. RESULTS: In the stroke patients, 25.4% showed the I I genotypes, 8.5% the ID genotypes and 66.1% the DD genotypes. In the control group, the frequencies of each genotype were 20.8%, 55.4% and 23.8%, respectively. The DD genotypes were more common in patients with ischemic stroke compared with the controls, but there was no significant association between ACE genotypes and sub-types of cerebrovascular disease. CONCLUSIONS: The deletion polymorphism in the angiotensin-converting enzyme gene may play a role in development of ischemic stroke.
Angiotensins* ; Atrial Fibrillation ; Brain Ischemia ; Carotid Arteries ; Cerebral Infarction ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Coronary Artery Disease ; DNA ; Genotype ; Heart Diseases ; Heart Valve Diseases ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular ; Infarction ; Magnetic Resonance Angiography ; Myocardial Infarction ; Neck ; Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Stroke*

Lipomas are mostly located in the subcutaneous tissues and rarely cause symptoms. Occasionally, peripheral nerve compression by lipomas is reported. We describe a case of a 59-year-old man with a left-middle cerebral artery infarction who was newly diagnosed as right basal ganglia and thalamic intracranial hemorrhage. He had neuropathic pain in the left arm and leg that was suspected to be central post-stroke pain. The administration of pain medication brought only temporary symptom relief. Nerve conduction and electromyography studies revealed left L5 radiculopathy and he showed a positive ‘sign of the buttock’ in the left hip. Left-hip magnetic resonance imaging revealed an intermuscular lipoma compressing the sciatic nerve. After surgery, the range of motion in the left hip joint was significantly increased, and the patient's pain was relieved.
Arm ; Basal Ganglia ; Cerebral Arteries ; Electromyography ; Hip ; Hip Joint ; Humans ; Infarction ; Intracranial Hemorrhages ; Leg ; Lipoma* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Middle Aged ; Neural Conduction ; Neuralgia ; Peripheral Nerves ; Radiculopathy ; Range of Motion, Articular ; Sciatic Nerve* ; Subcutaneous Tissue

Linkage disequilibrium (LD) is the non-random association between the loci and it could give us a preliminary insight into the genetic history of the population. In the present study LD patterns and effective population size (Ne) of three Korean cattle breeds along with Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian cattle were compared using the bovine Illumina SNP50 panel. The effective population size (Ne) is the number of breeding individuals in a population and is particularly important as it determines the rate at which genetic variation is lost. The genotype data in our study comprised a total of 129 samples, varying from 4 to 39 samples. After quality control there were ~29,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for which r² value was calculated. Average distance between SNP pairs was 1.14 Mb across all breeds. Average r² between adjacent SNP pairs ranged between was 0.1 for Yanbian to 0.3 for Qinchuan. Effective population size of the breeds based on r² varied from 16 in Hainan to 226 in Yanbian. Amongst the Korean native breeds effective population size of Brindle Hanwoo was the least with Ne = 59 and Brown Hanwoo was the highest with Ne = 83. The effective population size of the Korean cattle breeds has been decreasing alarmingly over the past generations. We suggest appropriate measures to be taken to prevent these local breeds in their native tracts.
Animals ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Breeding ; Cattle* ; Family Characteristics ; Genetic Variation ; Genotype ; Humans ; Korea ; Linkage Disequilibrium ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; Population Density ; Quality Control

Group B streptococcus (GBS) is the leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Late-onset GBS disease commonly manifests as occult bacteremia or meningitis. Approximately 50% of survivors of late-onset meningitis have long-term neurologic sequelae. Cerebrovascular complications are often associated with unfavorable clinical outcomes of GBS meningitis. There have been a few reports of cerebral infarction accompanied by GBS meningitis. We report a 29-day-old girl with severe, widespread cerebral infarction due to late-onset GBS meningitis. Isolated GBS strain from this patient was serotype III, ST-19. Currently, she has cortical blindness and significant developmental delay.
Bacteremia ; Blindness, Cortical ; Cerebral Infarction ; Female ; Humans ; Meningitis ; Mortality ; Serogroup ; Streptococcus ; Streptococcus agalactiae ; Survivors

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and usability of cost-effective complex upper and lower limb robot-assisted gait training in patients with stroke using the GTR-A, a foot-plate based end-effector type robotic device. Methods: Patients with subacute stroke (n=9) were included in this study. The enrolled patients received 30-minute robot-assisted gait training thrice a week for 2 weeks (6 sessions). The hand grip strength, functional ambulation categories, modified Barthel index, muscle strength test sum score, Berg Balance Scale, Timed Up and Go Test, and Short Physical Performance Battery were used as functional assessments. The heart rate was measured to evaluate cardiorespiratory fitness. A structured questionnaire was used to evaluate the usability of robot-assisted gait training. All the parameters were evaluated before and after the robot-assisted gait training program. Results: Eight patients completed robot-assisted gait training, and all parameters of functional assessment significantly improved between baseline and posttraining, except for hand grip strength and muscle strength test score. The mean scores for each domain of the questionnaire were as follows: safety, 4.40±0.35; effects, 4.23±0.31; efficiency, 4.22±0.77; and satisfaction, 4.41±0.25. Conclusion Thus, the GTR-A is a feasible and safe robotic device for patients with gait impairment after stroke, resulting in improvement of ambulatory function and performance of activities of daily living with endurance training. Further research including various diseases and larger sample groups is necessary to verify the utility of this device.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate brain activity in youth during chewing gum and wood stick using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: Two participants chewed wax gums and wood stick on the rhythm of 1 Hz during MRI scanning. The task paradigm was a block design and each chewing-rest procedure was repeated five times for 30s. Results: The brain regions activated during chewing gum and wood stick were the precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus, supplementary motor area, thalamus cerebellum. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), hippocampus, and precuneus were additionally activated by mastication of the wood stick. Brain activation induced by chewing wood stick was higher than chewing gum. Conclusions Our results suggest that mastication contribute to cognitive improvement through brain activity, this effect is stronger during chewing wood than gum. Therefore, eating harder foods may improve cognitive function more effectively.

OBJECTIVE: For patients who do not relieve with pharmacological intervention, interventional treatment including neurolytic blocks may have a specific role in palliative cancer management.METHOD: We performed cervical stellate ganglion block for the second time with Botulinum toxin type A mixed with 4 ml of normal saline, total 75 IU of Botulinum toxin type A, minimal effective dosage was measured to minimize the possible side effects.RESULTS: About 3 days later, the patient reported that her continuous pain intensity had decreased from 8/10 to 4/10 on the visual analogue scale score. The frequency of the pain attack that required additional morphine injections was also decreased. As a result, her maximum morphine requirement dose per day was significantly reduced.CONCLUSION: In this case, cervical stellate ganglion block with Botulinum toxin hadlonger lasting effect in the continuous pain intensity and resulted in less frequent pain attack. Botulinum toxin can be a possibleintervention material in intractable neuropathic pain related to cancer.
Botulinum Toxins ; Botulinum Toxins, Type A ; Humans ; Methods ; Morphine ; Neuralgia ; Stellate Ganglion

PURPOSE: To determine the usefulness of additional Mn-DPDP MRI for preoperative evaluation of the patients with colorectal cancers by comparison of dual-phase CT scan, Mn-DPDP enhanced MRI and combination of CT and MRI. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-three colorectal cancer patients with 92 metastatic nodules underwent dualphase (arterial and portal) helical CT scan and Mn-DPDP MRI prior to surgery. The indication of MRI was presence or suspected of having metastatic lesions at CT scan and/or increased serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels (10 ng/mL or more). The diagnosis was established by the combination of findings at surgery, intraoperative ultrasonography, and histopathologic examination. Two radiologists interpreted CT, MRI, and combination of CT-MRI at discrete sessions and evaluated each lesion for location, size, and intrinsic characteristics. The lesions were divided into three groups according to their diameter; 1cm <, 1-2 cm, and > 2 cm. Diagnostic accuracy was evaluated using the alternative-free response receiver operating characteristic method. Detection and false positive rate were also evaluated. RESULTS: In the lesions smaller than 1 cm, detection rate of combined CT-MRI was superior to CT or MRI alone (82%, p = 0.036). The mean accuracy (Az values) of combined CT and MRI was significantly higher than that of CT in the lesions smaller than 2 cm (1 cm <, p=0.034; 1-2 cm, p=0.045). However, there was no significant difference between MRI and combined CT-MRI. The false positive rate of CT was higher than those of combined CT-MR in the lesions smaller than 1 cm (28 %, p=0.023). CONCLUSION: Additional MRI using Mn-DPDP besides routine CT scan was helpful in differentiating the hepatic lesions (< 2 cm) and could improve detection of the small hepatic metastases (< 1 cm) from colorectal carcinoma.
Carcinoembryonic Antigen ; Colorectal Neoplasms* ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging* ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; ROC Curve ; Tomography, Spiral Computed ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed* ; Ultrasonography

Background and Objectives: Injection laryngoplasty is a common method for treatment of unilateral vocal fold paralysis. Unilateral vocal fold paralysis has various causes, including idiopathic, infection, stroke, neurologic condition, surgery and nerve invasion by cancer. To the knowledge of the authors, there was no study on the relationship between the causes of vocal cord paralysis and the outcome of injection laryngoplasty. Therefore, we tried to investigate the difference in the outcomes of injection laryngoplasty between vocal cord paralysis after surgery group and nerve invasion by cancer group.Materials and Method A retrospective analysis was performed for 24 patients who underwent vocal cord injection due to unilateral vocal cord paralysis caused by surgery or nerve invasion by cancer. The objective quality of the voice was assessed by acoustic voice analysis with the Multi-Dimensional Voice Program. Results: Both group showed an improvement of fundamental frequemcy (F0), jitter percent, shimmer (percent), and noise to hearmonic ratio (NHR) after injection laryngoplasty. The vocal cord paralysis due to nerve invasion group showed more improvement in both the mean and median value of F0, shimmer percent and NHR than the vocal cord paralysis due to surgery group, but there was not statistically significant. Conclusion Our study did not show a statistically significant difference in outcome between vocal cord paralysis due to cancer invasion group and surgery group, but statistically tendency was suggested. The vocal cord paralysis due to nerve invasion group showed more improvement in both the mean and median value of acoustic voice analysis than surgery group.

Objective: Recent studies highlighted the triple-network model which illustrated the interactions among three large-scale networks including salience network (SN). The functional magnetic resonance imaging used in this study was designed to investigate the characteristics of three large-scale networks associated with the thought-action fusion (TAF) in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using power spectral density (PSD) analysis. Methods: This study included 32 OCD patients and 38 age-matched healthy controls (HC). The TAF task was modified from the experiment of Rassin. PSD from time courses in large-scale networks of each subject was measured to compare between the groups for both TAF and resting state. Results: In SN, OCD reported lower power in the low-frequency domain of SN compared to HC using the two-sample t test during the TAF task (t = −2.395, p = 0.019) but not in the resting state. The PSD in the low-frequency domain of the SN had a significant negative correlation with state score in the guilty inventory (r = −0.361, p = 0.042) in OCD patients. Conclusion This study suggests that OCD patients showed reduced SN power which can be prominent in a certain situation, such as TAF. In addition, the PSD alterations in SN cause difficulty in processing ambiguous emotional cues in social situations, and the difficulty can be connected with a negative feeling (e.g., guilt).