• BMB Reports
• /
• v.47 no.7
• /
• pp.369-375
• /
• 2014

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a pleiotropic bioactive peptide that was first isolated from an ovine hypothalamus in 1989. PACAP belongs to the secretin/glucagon/vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) superfamily. PACAP is widely distributed in the central and peripheral nervous systems and acts as a neurotransmitter, neuromodulator, and neurotrophic factor via three major receptors (PAC1, VPAC1, and VPAC2). Recent studies have shown a neuroprotective role of PACAP using in vitro and in vivo models. In this review, we briefly summarize the current findings on the neurotrophic and neuroprotective effects of PACAP in different brain injury models, such as cerebral ischemia, Parkinson's disease (PD), and Alzheimer's disease (AD). This review will provide information for the future development of therapeutic strategies in treatment of these neurodegenerative diseases.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.257-264
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the lower extremity kinematics and muscle activities of adductor longus(AL), gluteus medius(GME), gluteus maximus(GMA), biceps femoris(BF), rectus femoris(RF), gastrocnemius(GA), and tibialis anterior(TA) using three dimensional and Noraxon 8 channels EMG system during turn 0, 60, 90 and 120 degrees in patients with Parkinson's disease. Seven parkinson's patients and five healthy subjects were participated in the study. Participants with Parkinson's disease demonstrated significant differences in reduction of stride length and stride width. Also, they showed ill difference in muscle activities. The strength and balance of the lower extremity muscles may help to improve cutting movement and to prevent falling in parkinson's patients.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2019.05a
• /
• pp.283-284
• /
• 2019

In the last decades patient's suffering with Parkinson's disease is increasing at a rapid rate and as per prediction it will grow more rapidly as old age population is increasing at a rapid rate through out the world. As the performance of wearable sensor based approach reached to a new height as well as powerful machine learning technique provides more accurate result these combination has been widely used for assessment of various neurological diseases. ON state is the state where the effect of medicine is present and OFF state the effect of medicine is reduced or not present at all. Classification of ON/OFF state for the Parkinson's disease is important because the patients could injure them self due to freezing of gait and gait related problems in the OFF state. in this paper wearable sensor based approach has been used to collect the data in ON and OFF state and machine learning techniques are used to automate the classification based on the gait pattern. Supervised machine learning techniques able to provide 97.6% accuracy while classifying the ON/OFF state.

• Journal of Dental Rehabilitation and Applied Science
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.228-234
• /
• 2019

Parkinson's disease is a neurological disorder characterized by tremor, bradykinesia, akinesia, postural instability, and muscular rigidity, which is caused by the depletion of neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Cooperative dental treatment is more challenging because of tremor of Parkinson's disease. In this case, a 47-year-old Parkinson's disease patient with chronic periodontitis was treated with full-mouth rehabilitation using conventional fixed prostheses and implant fixed partial denture, which attained satisfactory outcomes functionally and esthetically. Short term periodic follow-ups will be needed with consideration for the characteristics of Parkinson's disease such as decreased manual dexterity.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.127-136
• /
• 2007

Ginseng, the root of Panax species, is a well-known herbal medicine. It has been used as traditional medicine in Korea, China and Japan for thousands of years and now is a popular and worldwide natural medicine. The active principles of ginseng are ginsenosides which are also called ginseng saponins. Traditionally ginseng has been used primarily as a tonic to invigorate weak body functions and help the restoration of homeostasis. Current in vivo and in vitro studies demonstrate its beneficial effects in a wide range of pathological conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, immune deficiency and hepatotoxicity. Moreover, recent research indicates that some of ginseng's active ingredients exert beneficial actions on aging and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson´s disease. Essentially, antioxidant, antiinflammatory, anti-apoptotic and immunostimulant activities are mostly underlying the postulated ginseng-mediated protective mechanisms. Next to animal studies, data from neural cell cultures contribute to the understanding of these mechanisms which involve decreasing nitric oxide, scavenging of free radicals and counteracting excitotoxicity. This paper focuses on own and other neuroprotective data on ginseng for dopaminergic neurons and intends to show aspects where neuroprotection e.g. by ginsenosides, additionally or preceding standard Parkinson therapy, could come about as a valuable contribution to slow neurodegenerative processes.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
• /
• v.37 no.1
• /
• pp.8-29
• /
• 2013

Ginseng is one of the most widely used herbal medicines in human. Central nervous system (CNS) diseases are most widely investigated diseases among all others in respect to the ginseng's therapeutic effects. These include Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cerebral ischemia, depression, and many other neurological disorders including neurodevelopmental disorders. Not only the various types of diseases but also the diverse array of target pathways or molecules ginseng exerts its effect on. These range, for example, from neuroprotection to the regulation of synaptic plasticity and from regulation of neuroinflammatory processes to the regulation of neurotransmitter release, too many to mention. In general, ginseng and even a single compound of ginsenoside produce its effects on multiple sites of action, which make it an ideal candidate to develop multi-target drugs. This is most important in CNS diseases where multiple of etiological and pathological targets working together to regulate the final pathophysiology of diseases. In this review, we tried to provide comprehensive information on the pharmacological and therapeutic effects of ginseng and ginsenosides on neurodegenerative and other neurological diseases. Side by side comparison of the therapeutic effects in various neurological disorders may widen our understanding of the therapeutic potential of ginseng in CNS diseases and the possibility to develop not only symptomatic drugs but also disease modifying reagents based on ginseng.

• Journal of Haehwa Medicine
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.57-64
• /
• 2011

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disease of a cranial nerve and has a main symptoms of irregular movement of muscle, stiffening, trembling which occurred by about 1% of population in the age of over 65. Moreover, the and prevalence rate and attack rate are soaring according to increase of elderly population. However, allopathy and surgery were done through dopamine and anticholinergic medicine for treatment but it developed a lot of complications due to medicine and progress since it makes slow progress or can't stop the treatment. Hereupon, I report that there is a case on one of the patients Young Jin Oriental Medical Clinic. The patient who is in state of treatment termination who doesn't need any further remedy and no worsening of symptoms after conduction of therapies of dialectic and 5 upright life cure regulations. 5 upright life cure regulations means five practive way for improvement of nature healing power. Upon undertaking the 5 upright life cure regulations, there were found significant results in such tests as Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), Hoehn & Yahr Staging Scale, and Activity of Daily Living (ADL), and the ingestion of Benztropine 1mg and Requip 0.25mg was decreased from 3 times to 0 times. The study offers objective clinical data on Oriental Medicine treatment for Parkinson's disease which is one of representative neuro-degenerative diseases and thus broadens the application range of Oriental Medical treatment and presents the fundamental data on the clinical research on Parkinson's disease by adopting evidence-based medicine (EBM).

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.9-17
• /
• 2010

Objectives: Parkinson's disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases in the elderly population. In order to estimate the prevalence of Parkinson's disease in the community, the application of a good screening tool is essential. We evaluated the validity and reliability of a Parkinson's disease screening questionnaire and propose an alternative measure to improve its validity for use in community surveys. Methods: We designed the study in a three-phase approach consisting of a screening questionnaire, neurologic examination, and confirmatory examination. A repeated survey was administered to patients with disease detected in the community and on 150 subjects. We examined internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha test, test-retest reliability using the kappa statistic, and validity using sensitivity, specificity, and ROC curves. Unadjusted odds ratios were utilized for the estimation of weights for each questionnaire item. Results: The Cronbach's alpha of the questionnaire was 0.708. The kappa statistic for test-retest reliability was good to generally fair in most of the items. When newly proposed weighting scores were used, the optimum cut-off value was 7/8. When cut-off value was 5/6 for surveying prevalence in a community, the sensitivity was 0.98, and the specificity was 0.61, with simultaneous improvement in reliability. Conclusions: We recommend 5/6 as the ideal cut-off value for the survey of PD prevalence in community. This questionnaire designed for the Korean community could help future epidemiologic studies of PD.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.782-792
• /
• 2016

As the most common neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are two of the main health concerns for the elderly population. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been used as biomarkers of infectious, genetic, and metabolic diseases in humans but they have not been well studied in domestic animals. Here we describe a computational biology study in which human AD- and PD-associated miRNAs (ADM and PDM) were utilized to predict orthologous miRNAs in the following domestic animal species: dog, cow, pig, horse, and chicken. In this study, a total of 121 and 70 published human ADM and PDM were identified, respectively. Thirty-seven miRNAs were co-regulated in AD and PD. We identified a total of 105 unrepeated human ADM and PDM that had at least one 100% identical animal homolog, among which 81 and 54 showed 100% sequence identity with 241 and 161 domestic animal miRNAs, respectively. Over 20% of the total mature horse miRNAs (92) showed perfect matches to AD/PD-associated miRNAs. Pigs, dogs, and cows have similar numbers of AD/PD-associated miRNAs (63, 62, and 59). Chickens had the least number of perfect matches (34). Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses suggested that humans and dogs are relatively similar in the functional pathways of the five selected highly conserved miRNAs. Taken together, our study provides the first evidence for better understanding the miRNA-AD/PD associations in domestic animals, and provides guidance to generate domestic animal models of AD/PD to replace the current rodent models.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.133-143
• /
• 2012

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a subfamily of zinc-dependent proteases that are re-sponsible for degradation and remodeling of extracellular matrix proteins. The activity of MMPs is tightly regulated at several levels including cleavage of prodomain, allosteric activation, com-partmentalization and complex formation with tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMPs). In the central nervous system (CNS), MMPs play a wide variety of roles ranging from brain devel-opment, synaptic plasticity and repair after injury to the pathogenesis of various brain disorders. Following general discussion on the domain structure and the regulation of activity of MMPs, we emphasize their implication in various brain disorder conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, ischemia/reperfusion and Parkinson's disease. We further highlight accumu-lating evidence that MMPs might be the culprit in Parkinson's disease (PD). Among them, MMP-3 appears to be involved in a range of pathogenesis processes in PD including neuroinflamma-tion, apoptosis and degradation of ${\alpha}$-synuclein and DJ-1. MMP inhibitors could represent poten-tial novel therapeutic strategies for treatments of neurodegenerative diseases.