• The Korean Journal of Pharmacology
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.23-30
• /
• 1981

1) Effects of McN-A-343, clonidine and cocaine on the contractile response of the rat and rabbit vas deferens to field stimulation were investigated. The action mechanisms of these drugs have shown to be associated with endogenous norepinephrine(NE). 2) The contractile response to the stimulation of 5-10 Hz was markedly inhibited by the cumulative doses of McN-A-343 (0.003, 0.03, $0.3{\mu}g/ml$), clonidine (0.003, $0.3{\mu}g/ml$) and cocaine $(0.03\;{\mu}g/ml)$. The inhibition was antagonized by yohimbine and pjperoxan. 3) The inhibitory effect of McN-A-343 $(0.03{\mu}g/ml)$ and cocaine $(0.03{\mu}g/ml)$ was markedly enhanced by the same dose of cocaine and McN-A-343, respectively. This enhanced inhibition was also antagonized by yohimbine. 4) The contractile response to the stimulation of 0.01 Hz and 5-10 Hz was markedly potentiated by comparatively large doses of McN-A-343 $(30\;{\mu}g/ml)$ and $(3\;{\mu}g/ml)$. This potentiation was not observed in the presence of thymoxamine. The potentiation by McN-A-343 also did not appear in the presence of atropine. 5) The contractile response to the above stimulation was potentiated by muscarine and the potentiation was markedly attenuated in the presence of thymoxamine and atropine.

• The Korean Journal of Pharmacology
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.13-23
• /
• 1990

Methylene Blue (MeB) and gentian violet $(10^{-6}{\sim}10^{-4}\;M)$ produced contractions in isolated thoracic aortic preparations of rabbits in a dose-dependent fashion, while other dyes, evans blue and eosine yellowish, did not affect the basal tension in the same range of doses. Porcine mesenteric arterial rings also responded to MeB with dose-dependent contractions. Single dose of $10^{-4}$ M MeB produced a biphasic response: contraction followed by relaxation. The contraction developed slowly within $2{\sim}4$ min and peaked in about 20 minutes and then slowly relaxed to the basal level. Tyramine $(10^{-4}\;M)$ also induced contraction but it developed faster and was more persistent than that of MeB. While the tyramine-induced tension was reproducible, the MeB-induced one wat not reiterable until 3 to 5 hours after washing out the MeB. Adding $10^{-4}$ M MeB further potentiated the contraction induced by $10^{-4}$ M tyramine. However, the MeB contraction was not affected by further addition or tyramine. Both tyramine- and MeB-induced tensions were abolished or significantly inhibited by pretreatment with various drugs acting on the sympathetic nervous system. The tyramine-induced tension was more sensitive to guanethidine and 6-hydroxydopamine than the MeB-induced tension, while the latter was more sensitive to $Ca^{2+}-free$ PSS and reserpine. But they have similar sensitivity to prazosin. The MeB-induced tension was significantly inhibited but not abolished by 6-hydroxydopamine pretreatment. However, either tyramine or 6-hydroxydopamine could not affect the basal tension of the ring that MeB once had been tested. These results suggest that MeB-induced contractions of rabbit thoracic aorta and porcine mesenteric artery result from a release of endogenous norepinephrine from adrenergic nerve endings and are dependent in part on extracellular calcium, and that the potency of MeB to release or to deplete norepinephrine is greater than that of either tyramine or 6-hydroxydopamine.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.82-90
• /
• 1998

This study is attempted to examine Korean teachers’ perceptions of mental health problems in students and their attitudes towards psychiatric consultations through a questionnaire survey. The results of this study are as follows. 1) Teachers thought that 5.3% of their students had mental health problems, 1.9% of students required psychiatric evaluation, and 1.2% of students were referred or recommended psychiatric evaluation by their teachers. 2) The most frequent mental health problems in students discovered by teachers were distractibility and inattention, lack of academic skills, and language difficulties in elementary schools；distractibility and inattention, conduct problems, and lack of academic skills in middle schools；and conduct problems, distractibility and inattention, physical symptoms, and substance abuse in high schools. 3) Teachers thought the mental health problems in students were caused by the family environment, psychological factors, the educational system, and a lack of mental health services. 4) Teachers desired smaller classes, improvement of the school environment, more time, regular mental health education, a special program for students with mental health problems, and the counseling staffs or consultants for the school mental health. 5) Teachers consulted with other teachers, the parents of the students, the counseling teachers, the health care teachers, the counseling institutes, the psychiatric clinics, and the principals in descending order to handle the hard case problems. The frequent reasons for failing in psychiatric consultations were the prejudice of parents against psychiatric services, the teachers’ sense of superiority in dealing with the problems of students, the prejudice of teachers themselves against psychiatric practice, and inaccessible professional consultation. 6) About 20.4% of teachers reported they had proposed psychiatric consultations or had recommended their students to receive psychiatric evaluations.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.79-84
• /
• 2009

Objectives: Chronic pain is one of the most common experiences of humans and a typical psychophysiological disorder. The aim of this study was to measure the psychophysiological responses in chronic pain patients using a biofeedback system, and to compare them with the results from normal healthy subjects. Methods: Forty two patients with chronic pain (17 males and 25 females, average age $44.67{\pm}11.10$ years) and 42 normal healthy controls (17 males and 25 females, average age $45.17{\pm}10.46$ years) participated in this study. Electromyography (EMG), skin conductance (SC), and skin temperature (ST) were recorded using biofeedback system during the 3 phases (baseline, stress, and recovery) of stress reactivity test, and average values of them were calculated. Difference of values between two groups in each corresponding phase was analyzed with independent t-test, and change of values across phases of stress reactivity test was analyzed with paired t-test (all two-tailed, p<0.05). Results: Compared to normal controls, chronic pain patients had higher value of EMG (baseline: $8.10{\pm}5.97{\mu}V$ vs $4.72{\pm}1.52{\mu}V$, t=-3.56, p<0.01; stress: $11.25{\pm}6.89{\mu}V$ vs $8.49{\pm}4.78{\mu}V$, t=-2.13, p<0.05; recovery: $7.12{\pm}3.77{\mu}V$ vs $4.78{\pm}1.59{\mu}V$, t=-3.70, p<0.01) and SC (baseline: $1.06{\pm}1.0{\mu}S$ vs $0.42{\pm}0.29{\mu}S$, t=-4.0. p<0.01; stress: $1.87{\pm}2.05{\mu}S$ vs $1.03{\pm}0.86{\mu}S$, t=-2.47, p<0.05; recovery: $1.74{\pm}1.77{\mu}S$ vs $0.64{\pm}0.59{\mu}S$, t=-3.8, p<0.01) in all the 3 phases. But, skin temperature comparison did not reveal significant differences in all the 3 phases between two groups. Conclusion: Psychophysiological responses of chronic pain patients in stress reactivity test were different from those of normal healthy controls. These results suggest that sympathetic nervous system is more activated in chronic pain patients.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.9-14
• /
• 2003

Sleep stages have been useful indicator to check a person's comfortableness in a sleep, But the traditional method of scoring sleep stages with polysomnography based on the integrated analysis of the electroencephalogram(EEG), electrooculogram(EOG), electrocardiogram(ECG), and electromyogram(EMG) is too restrictive to take a comfortable sleep for the participants, While the sympathetic nervous system is predominant during a wakefulness, the parasympathetic nervous system is more active during a sleep, Cardiovascular function is controlled by this autonomic nervous system, So, we have interpreted the heart rate variability(HRV) among sleep stages to find a simple method of classifying sleep stages, Six healthy male college students participated, and 12 night sleeps were recorded in this research, Sleep stages based on the "Standard scoring system for sleep stage" were automatically classified with polysomnograph by measuring EEG, EOG, ECG, and EMG(chin and leg) for the six participants during sleeping, To extract only the ECG signals from the polysomnograph and to interpret the HRV, a Sleep Data Acquisition/Analysis System was devised in this research, The power spectrum of HRV was divided into three ranges; low frequency(LF), medium frequency(MF), and high frequency(HF), It showed that, the LF/HF ratio of the Stage W(Wakefulness) was 325% higher than that of the Stage 2(p＜.05), 628% higher than that of the Stage 3(p＜.001), and 800% higher than that of the Stage 4(p＜.001), Moreover, this ratio of the Stage 4 was 427% lower than that of the Stage REM (rapid eye movement) (p＜.05) and 418% lower than that of the Stage l(p＜.05), respectively, It was observed that the LF/HF ratio decreased monotonously as the sleep stage changes from the Stage W, Stage REM, Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, to Stage 4, While the difference of the MF/(LF+HF) ratio among sleep Stages was not significant, it was higher in the Stage REM and Stage 3 than that of in the other sleep stages in view of descriptive statistic analysis for the sample group.