• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.94-102
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• 2018

It is known that gamma-band activity (GBA) and phase synchrony (GBPS) are induced by emotional visual stimuli. However, the characteristics of GBA and GBPS according to different emotional states have not been identified. The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes in gamma-band neuronal synchronization induced by positive and negative emotional visual stimuli using electroencephalograms (EEGs). Thirteen healthy male subjects have participated in the experiment. The induced spectral power in gamma-band was the highest for negative stimuli, and the lowest for neutral stimuli in 300-2,000 ms after the stimulus onset. The inter-regional phase synchronization in gamma-band was increased in 500-2,000 ms, mainly between the bilateral frontal regions and the parieto-occipital regions. Larger number of significant connections were found by negative stimuli compared to positive ones. Judging from temporal and spatial characteristics of the gamma-band activity and phase synchrony increases, the results may imply that affective visual stimuli cause stronger memory encoding than non-emotional stimuli, and this effect is more significant for negative emotional stimuli than positive ones.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.251-257
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• 2001

Backgrounds : Gamma band oscillatory activity is considered to be related to cognitive functions and illustrates that the concept of event-related oscillations bridges the gap between single neurons and neural assemblies. An event-related gamma oscillation is the time-locked responses of specific frequency, and can be identified by computing the amplitude frequency characteristics of the averaged event-related potentials(ERPs) after stimulation. Objectives : We purposed to present experimental paradigm to investigate ${\gamma}$-band oscillation activities from the recording of ERPs by using auditory oddball paradigm and investigate the difference of ${\gamma}$-band activity between schizophrenia and normal controls. Methods : The ERPs resulting from auditory stimuli with oddball paradigm in a group of schizophrenics(n=11), and also a group of age-, sex-, and handedness matched normal controls, were recorded by 128 channel EEG. The ${\gamma}$-band oscillatory activities were calculated by using time-frequency wavelet decomposition of the signal between 20 and 80Hz. The ${\gamma}$-band oscillatory activities of both groups were compared by t-test. Results : The ${\gamma}$-band oscillatory of the leads Fz, Cz, and Pz of both groups were represented well in the time-frequency maps. Significant increases of the ${\gamma}$-band activity in normal controls compared with schizophrenics were observed around 160 msec, 350 msec, and 800 msec after stimulation. Conclusions : Our results suggested that the increment in ${\gamma}$-band oscillatory activity during cognitive operations and decreased ${\gamma}$-band activity in schizophrenics may be associated with the cognitive dysfunctions and the pathophysiology of the schizophrenia.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.306-310
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to observe the change in gamma-band cortical activities (GBAs) due to task difficulty. Event-related potential and gamma-band activity were investigated using electroencephalograms recorded during auditory oddball tasks with two difficulty levels. For more difficult task, the amplitude of P300 decreased and the peak latency of P300 was delayed significantly compared to easier task. The induced GBA decreased considerably during the P300 latency period and the peak latency of the induced GBA was delayed for more difficult task. The results imply that the difficulty-related change in cortical information processing may be implemented as a change in the strength of local neuronal association.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1297-1298
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• 2001

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.42-48
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• 1995

The experiment was carried out to purify and to investigate the properties of the cyclodextrinase produced from Bacillus megaterium KFCC 11855. The enzyme was partially purified with $(NH_4)_2SO_4$ and chromatography on DEAE-trisacryl, Ultrogel AcA 34, DEAE-trisacryl and Ultrogel HA. The optimum temperature and pH of the purified enzyme were $60^{\circ}C$ and 6.0, respectively. The enzyme was stable at the temperature of $45^{\circ}C$ below and at the pH range of $6.0{\sim}9.0$, respectively. The Km value for ${\gamma}-cyclodextrin$ was 0.903 mM. The enzyme activity was increased by $Mg^{2+}$ and $Mn^{2+}$, but decreased by $Hg^{2+}$ and $Cu^{2+}$. The enzyme degraded ${\gamma}-cyclodextrin$ but not ${\alpha}-cyclodextrin$. The degree of ${\beta}-CD$ degradation by the enzyme was very low. The decomposed products of ${\gamma}-cyclodextrin$ by the enzyme were mainly glucose, maltose and a little amount of maltotriose.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.170-179
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate the spatiotemporal cortical activation pattern and functional connectivity during visual perception of words. 61 channel recordings of electroencephalogram were obtained from 15 subjects while they were judging the meaning of Korean, English, and Chinese words with concrete meanings. We examined event-related potentials (ERP) and applied independent component analysis (ICA) to find and separate simultaneously activated neural sources. Spectral analysis was also performed to investigate the gamma-band activity (GBA, 30-50 Hz) which is known to reflect feature binding. Five significant ERP components were identified and left hemispheric dominance was observed for most sites. Meaningful differences of amplitudes and latencies among languages were observed. It seemed that familiarity with each language and orthographic characteristics affected the characteristics of ERP components. ICA helped confirm several prominent sources corresponding to some ERP components. The results of spectral and time-frequency analyses showed distinct GBAs at prefrontal, frontal, and temporal sites. The GBAs at prefrontal and temporal sites were significantly correlated with the LPC amplitude and response time. The differences in spatiotemporal patterns of GBA among languages were not prominent compared to the inter-individual differences. The gamma-band coherence revealed short-range connectivity within frontal region and long-range connectivity between frontal, posterior, and temporal sites.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.477-483
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• 2008

The observations of difference and similarity in brain activities involved in processing different languages have fundamental importance in cognitive neuroscience. The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference and similarity in temporal brain activation patterns due to the language difference during visual perception of Korean and English words under priming. Especially, we tried to find the difference in evoked spectral power in gamma-band, which is known to reflect feature binding. The stimulation was visually presented as word pairs belonging to same or different categories so that N400 event-related potential(ERP) was evoked. Average ERP analysis and spectral analysis of gamma-band activity(GBA) were performed on 12 normal Korean subjects. Several ERP components such as P1, N1, N400, and P600 could be identified consistently, and the differences in N1, N400, and P600 were observed. From the spectral analysis, we found that the evoked GBA(eGBA) was significantly larger for English at ${\sim}100$ ms poststimulus. The latency of the eGBA was also considerably delayed for English. Overall, the results on the ERP components and eGBA analyses seem to be commensurate with subjects' familiarity of each language, and the difficulty of perceiving words of each language. The methods of this study can also be applied for clinical purposes considering that the language-related processing can be greatly altered for the patients with neurological or psychiatric diseases.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.124-133
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• 2018

We tried to investigate the changes in cortical activities according to emotional valence states during watching video clips. We examined the neural basis of two emotional states (positive and negative) using spectral power analysis and brain functional connectivity analysis of cortical current density time-series reconstructed from high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs). Fifteen healthy participants viewed a series of thirty-two 2 min emotional video clips. Sixty-four channel EEGs were recorded. Distributed cortical sources were reconstructed using weighted minimum norm estimation. The temporal and spatial characteristics of spectral source powers showing significant differences between positive and negative emotion were examined. Also, correlations between gamma-band activities and affective valence ratings were determined. We observed the changes of cortical current density time-series according to emotional states modulated by video clip. Gamma-band activities showed significant difference between emotional states for thirty seconds at the middle and the latter half of the video clip, mainly in prefrontal area. It was also significantly anti-correlated with the self-ratings of emotional valence. In addition, the gamma-band activities in frontal and temporal areas were strongly phase-synchronized, more strongly for negative emotional states. Cortical activities in frontal and temporal areas showed high spectral power and inter-regional phase synchronization in gamma-band during negative emotional states. It is inferred that the higher amygdala activation induced by negative stimuli resulted in strong emotional effects and caused strong local and global synchronization of neural activities in gamma-band in frontal and temporal areas.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 2010

Two chitinase producing strains CHI2 and CHI4 were isolated from soybean rhizosphere soil. Both the strains belonged to Lysobacter enzymogenes as indicated by 16S rDNA sequence analysis. Though strain CHI2 and CHI4 produced extracellular chitinase, they differ in their chitinolytic activity. CHI4 produced approximately three times the higher amounts of enzyme than that of CHI2 under specified conditions. CHI2 produced $535.67U\;l^{-1}$ of chitinase after 48 h incubation with a specific activity of $3.91U\;mg^{-1}$ of protein while strain CHI4 produced $1584.13U\;l^{-1}$ of chitinase with a specific activity of $10.88U\;mg^{-1}$ protein. SDS-PAGE analysis indicated that the molecular weight of chitinase enzyme was approximately 45 kDa. A faint band with a molecular weight of 55 kDa reveals the possibility for the presence of another kind of chitin binding protein. Mutant library was developed by exposing the isolates to gamma rays at their $LD_{99}$ value (0.23 kGy). Totally, 11 mutants of CHI2 and CHI4 are reported to have enhanced chitinase activity. Several leaky mutant clones with decreased enzyme activity and a defective mutant (CHI2-M16) with complete loss of chitinase activity were also identified. CHI4-M18, CHI4-M8 and CHI4-M29 showed 78.8, 41.5, and 31.9% increased chitinase activity over wild type CHI4.

• BMB Reports
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.438-442
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• 1997

${\gamma}-Glutamylamine$ cyclotransferase was purified to homogeneity from soybean (Glycine max) seeds. To our knowledge, it is the first purification of the enzyme from plant origins. The molecular weight of the enzyme estimated by Sephacryl S-300 gel filtration and SDS-PAGE was 27,000, indicating that the enzyme is a monomer. The optimal pH for activity was 8.6. The Km value for ${\gamma}-glutamyldansylcadaverine$ was 11 ${\mu}M$. The enzymatic activity was substantially inhibited by the addition of p-chloromercuribenzoate and partially inhibited by the $Cu^{2+}$ ion. However, neither other modification reagents nor other divalent metal ions affected the enzymatic activity. The comparison between the enzymatic activities of seed extracts treated with cycloheximide and control extracts, and the detection of the same single protein band by western blot analysis at the dormant stage without inhibition with distilled water indicate that ${\gamma}-Glutamylamine$ cyclotransferase is already present at the dormant stage and gradually activated during germination in soybean seeds.