• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.182-193
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• 1998

Background: Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), identified as a survival factor for developing peripheral neurons is upregulated by reactive astrocytes in the traumatized tissue and in areas of terminal degeneration after a brain lesion. But in the spinal cord, CNTF is expressed in the non-astrocytic phenotypic, maybe oligodendrocytes. The present study was undertaken to determine the upregulation of CNTF expression in reactive astrocytes following spinal cord lesion in the rat. Methods: Unilateral incision of the dorsal funiculus at the thoracic level was performed and rats were sacrificed on days 3, 7, 14 and 28 postlesion. Western blot analysis, immunocytochemical analysis and double immunofluorescence for CNTF and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) were performed after spinal cord lesion. Results: A major band with 24 kDa and additional band of higher molecular weight form were detectable, and the intensity of the 24 kDa immunoreactive band increased up to 14 days postlesion and decreased toward laminectomized control values. CNTF immunoreactivity was markedly upregulated in the injured dorsal funiculus and adjacent gray matter. The time course of CNTF expression is coincident with the appearance of reactive astrocytes in the injured spinal cord. Moreover, double immunofluorescence for CNTF and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) revealed that CNTF immunoreactivity was in GFAP immunoreactive astrocytes. Conclusions: These results show that CNTF upregulation occurred in reactive astrocytes following spinal cord lesion, and suggest a role for CNTF in the regulation of astrocytic responses after spinal cord injury.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.179-184
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• 2009

Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT) is a new bio-imaging modality providing cross-sectional conductivity images from measurements of internal magnetic flux densities produced by externally injected currents. Recent MREIT studies demonstrated successful conductivity image reconstructions of postmortem and in vivo canine brain. However, the whole head imaging was not achieved due to technical issues related with electrodes and noise in measured magnetic flux density data. In this study, we used a new carbon-hydrogel electrode with a large contact area and injected 30 mA imaging current through a canine head. Using a 3T MREIT system, we performed a postmortem canine experiment and produced high-resolution conductivity images of the entire canine head. Collecting magnetic flux density data inside the head subject to multiple injection currents, we reconstructed cross-sectional conductivity images using the harmonic $B_z$ algorithm. The conductivity images of the canine head show a good contrast not only inside the brain region including white and gray matter but also outside the brain region including the skull, temporalis muscle, mandible, lingualis proprius muscle, and masseter muscle.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.329-335
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• 2009

Objective : Determining language lateralization is important for the presurgical evaluation of patients with medically intractable epilepsy. The Wada test has been the gold standard for lateralization of language dominance before epilepsy surgery. However, it is an invasive test with risk, and have some limitations. Methods : We compared the volumetric analysis with Wada test, and studied the clinical potential of volumetric analysis to assess language laterality in large surgical candidates with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). To examine the efficacy of volumetric analysis to determine language lateralization during presurgical evaluation, we compared the volumetric analysis of the bilateral planum temporale with the results of Wada test in 59 patients with chronic intractable TLE (rTLE, n=32; lTLE, n=27) who underwent epilepsy surgery. We measured the gray matter volumes of planum temporale (PT) of each patients using the VoxelPlus2 program (Mevisys, Daejeon, Korea). Results : Overall congruence of the volumetric analysis with the Wada test was 97.75% in rTLE patients and 81.5% in lTLE patients. There were more significant leftward asymmetry of the PT in rTLE patients than lTLE patients. In lTLE patients, relatively high proportion (37%) of the patients showed bilateral or right hemispheric language dominance. Conclusion : These results provide evidence that the volumetric analysis of the PT could be used as an alternatives in language lateralization. Also, the results of the Wada test suggested that there was considerable plasticity of language representation in the brains of patients with intractable TLE and it was associated with an earlier age of brain injury.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.139-149
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• 2019

Purpose: With neurodegeneration, the signal intensity of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain increases. The objective of this study was to evaluate chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) signals with and without the contribution of CSF signals in elderly human brains using two different 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences Methods: Full CEST signals were acquired in ten subjects (Group I) with a three-dimensional (3D)-segmented gradient-echo echo-planar imaging (EPI) sequence and in ten other subjects (Group II) with a 3D gradient and spin-echo (GRASE) sequence using two different 3T MRI systems. The segmented tissue compartments of gray and white matter were used to mask the CSF signals in the full CEST images. Two sets of magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTR_asym) maps were obtained for each offset frequency in each subject with and without masking the CSF signals (masked and unmasked conditions, respectively) and later compared using paired t-tests. Results: The region-of-interest (ROI)-based analyses showed that the MTR_asym values for both the 3D-segmented gradient-echo EPI and 3D GRASE sequences were altered under the masked condition compared with the unmasked condition at several ROIs and offset frequencies. Conclusions: Depending on the imaging sequence, the MTR_asym values can be overestimated for some areas of the elderly human brain when CSF signals are unmasked. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a method to minimize this overestimation in the case of elderly patients.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.38
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• pp.261-277
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• 1998

This study is focused on two things, on the matter of judge's robe(JR) which is worn in the court. First, Korean JR were examined from late 19th century through today(1997)to reveal the entity of the JR : characteristics of each JR has been changed according to the political or international influences. Second, JR from 92 countries were collected and analyzed to figure out the plastic characteristics of the JR among international society. The results are as follows : First, Korean JR were have changed many times according to the social, political influences. The Korean modern judicial system were proclaim in 1895 and JR were adapted in 1906. In 1920, Japanese style JR were worn until 1945 when Korean government have had her Independence. Korean Government have changed JR through which Korean identities were expressed through patterns such as national flower Mukungwha(Hibiscus) and Yang & Yin. In 1966 Korean JR were changed again and adopted western style JR until today (1997) which have many things in common with academic robe of university or clerical robe. Second, the analysis of the 92 international JR were summarized as follows : (1) The JR were consisted of three styles such as Gown style, Cape style and Jacket style. And Gown style has been found as the most popular style(86%) for JR among them. (2) As the main color of JR, black is used among 60% of countries and red is used in 33% of countries. Gold were matched for black JR and gray for red JR as their sub-color. (3) The most popular material were wool and satin were favored as its sub-materials. (4) Natural and Geometric Patterns were used to express the symbol of the country and the court. (5) Decorative items and details such as hat, gloves, shoes, wig, necklace, neck-tie, stole, tassels, rope, ruffles were used to express wearers dignity and symbolism. These results are expected to be adapted for the future design for new JR which has its identity and characteristics.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.210-222
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• 2017

Purpose: To develop a novel combination of controlled aliasing in parallel imaging results in higher acceleration (CAIPIRINHA) with integrated SSFP (CAIPI-iSSFP) for accelerated SSFP imaging without banding artifacts at 3T. Materials and Methods: CAIPI-iSSFP was developed by adding a dephasing gradient to the balanced SSFP (bSSFP) pulse sequence with a gradient area that results in $2{\pi}$ dephasing across a single pixel. Extended phase graph (EPG) simulations were performed to show the signal behaviors of iSSFP, bSSFP, and RF-spoiled gradient echo (SPGR) sequences. In vivo experiments were performed for brain and abdominal imaging at 3T with simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) acceleration factors of 2, 3 and 4 with CAIPI-iSSFP and CAIPI-bSSFP. The image quality was evaluated by measuring the relative contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and by qualitatively assessing banding artifact removal in the brain. Results: Banding artifacts were removed using CAIPI-iSSFP compared to CAIPI-bSSFP up to an SMS factor of 4 and 3 on brain and liver imaging, respectively. The relative CNRs between gray and white matter were on average 18% lower in CAIPI-iSSFP compared to that of CAIPI-bSSFP. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that CAIPI-iSSFP provides up to a factor of four acceleration, while minimizing the banding artifacts with up to a 20% decrease in the relative CNR.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.68-74
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• 2017

Objectives It is well known that problem drinking is associated with alterations of brain structures and functions. Brain functions related to alcohol consumption can be determined by the resting state functional connectivity in various resting state networks (RSNs). This study aims to ascertain the alcohol effect on the structures forming predetermined RSNs by assessing their cortical thickness. Methods Twenty-six abstinent male patients with alcohol dependence and the same number of age-matched healthy control were recruited from an inpatient mental hospital and community. All participants underwent a 3T MRI scan. Averaged cortical thickness of areas constituting 7 RSNs were determined by using FreeSurfer with Yeo atlas derived from cortical parcellation estimated by intrinsic functional connectivity. Results There were significant group differences of mean cortical thicknesses (Cohen's d, corrected p) in ventral attention (1.01, < 0.01), dorsal attention (0.93, 0.01), somatomotor (0.90, 0.01), and visual (0.88, 0.02) networks. We could not find significant group differences in the default mode network. There were also significant group differences of gray matter volumes corrected by head size across the all networks. However, there were no group differences of surface area in each network. Conclusions There are differences in degree and pattern of structural recovery after abstinence across areas forming RSNs. Considering the previous observation that group differences of functional connectivity were significant only in networks related to task-positive networks such as dorsal attention and cognitive control networks, we can explain recovery pattern of cognition and emotion related to the default mode network and the mechanisms for craving and relapse associated with task-positive networks.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.124-128
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• 2005

Objective: Congenital bilateral perisylvian syndrome(CBPS) has been defined as a characteristic malformative perisylvian polymicrogyria(PMG) in patients with clinical symptoms of pseudobulbar palsy and epileptic seizures. For the present study, we investigate clinicopathologic features of CBPS associated with timing of lesion formation. Methods: Clinicopathologic features of CBPS from 6 patients with surgical resection of the cerebral lesions due to medically intractable seizures were studied. Results: Seizure onset ranged from 1 to 10years (average 6.7years) of age, and average duration of seizure was 23years. All had complex partial seizures, and two patients had additional tonic clonic seizures. Magnetic resonance (MR) images showed polymicrogyria, atropic gyri with gliosis. In the histopathologic examination, the cortical lesions revealed features of ulegyria; atrophic and sclerotic gyri, laminar loss of neurons, extensive lobular gliosis throughout the gray and white matter, neuronoglial nodule formation, and many amyloid bodies. Unlayered or four-layered PMG was not identified. Conclusion: Above data suggest that CBPS might be caused by ulegyria resulting from developmental cortical defect during early fetal stage or acquired hypoxic/ischemic injury in prenatal or postnatal life.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.177-187
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• 1997

Hydrocephalus is induced experimentally in prenatal and suckling animals following an injection of 6-aminonicotinamide (6-AN). The most remarkable characteristic of these animals is aqueduct stenosis caused by swellings of the ependymal cells and subependymal cells in the periaqueductal gray matter and the central canal of the spinal cord. The present study was undertaken to investigate the morphological changes of the ependymal cells in the central canal of the spinal cord of 3.5 months old hamster after treatment with 6-AN. Intraperitoneal administrations of 6-AN (10 mg/kg body weight) every two days gave rise to partial central canal stenosis of the spinal cord after 27-29 days (13-l4th injection), but cilia and microvilli were located in the strictural area of the con#rat canal. The vacuolations in the ependymal cells were not observed and degenerating changes of intracellular organelles of the ependymal cells did not occur, so that the ependymal cells lining the central canal of the hamster spinal cord were not affected by 6-AN. But the present study demonstrate that 6-AN causes to create numerous vacuoles in the subependymal area of the central canal. Although the vacuoles were well developed in the neuroglial cells and the neuropils of the subependymal area, the neurons were not affected by 6-AN. These results strongly suggests that partial central canal stenosis occurred by 6-AN was due to vacuolations and swellings of the neuroglial cells and nueropils in the subependymal area.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.91-95
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• 2018

Polioencephalomalacia (PEM) is a neurologic disease of ruminants diagnosed by pathological approach. There is very little information available to understand bovine PEM in Korea. In this study, we investigated the diagnostic rate and pathological features of PEM in 334 necropsied cases of cattle submitted to the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency in Korea from 2015~2017. PEM was diagnosed only in 13 (3.9%) Hanwoo, the Korean native cattle, and sporadically occurred in our country. The disease was the most diagnosed in fall season, and the age of the cows ranged from 1 month to 3 year. In all PEM cases, softening, and yellow discoloration of the gray matter in the cerebrum and fluorescence at the sites using ultraviolet illumination were grossly observed. Microscopically abundance of glial cells with vacuolar large cytoplasm and neuronal necrosis were commonly observed. This study suggests that future studies are necessary to identify the cause and pathogenesis for the control of PEM in our country.