Biomedical subjects

Rinmei Fukuda

Publications and source records attributed to Rinmei Fukuda.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: diffusion tensor tractography and voxel-based analysis.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the diffusional anisotropy of water molecules is disrupted in the pyramidal and extra-pyramidal regions in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We studied seven patients with probable ALS (four women, mean age +/- SD, 57.3 +/- 6.2 years old) according to the criteria of the World Federation of Neurology. A control group consisted of 11 age- and sex-matched volunteers (six women, 57.1 +/- 4.5) without disorders affecting the central nervous system. Voxel-based diffusion tensor analysis was made with statistical parametric mapping (SPM99). We also created the normalized corticospinal tractography from the diffusion tensor data. The significant fractional anisotropy (FA) decrease in the ALS group was found in the right frontal subgyral white matter and left frontal precentral white matter. These clusters with significant FA decrease corresponded well to the average group map of the corticospinal tract in a standard reference frame. These results suggested that the combination of voxel-based diffusion tensor analysis and diffusion tensor tractography might help determine the location of the affected neuronal tissues among ALS patients in a non-invasive manner.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2004

Executive and prefrontal dysfunction in unipolar depression: a review of neuropsychological and imaging evidence.

This paper reviews recent empirical findings related to prefrontal and executive function in unipolar depression. While a number of reviews have dealt with either the neuropsychological literature or findings from imaging studies, the present review addresses both, as well as findings from studies that have combined brain-imaging techniques with neuropsychological measures. This combined approach is of great interest as the performance of a structured task may act to load the areas of interest and reduce variance, thus making the imaging evidence more valuable; while the use of imaging provides a check that the neuropsychological tasks are indeed engaging the structures whose performance they are intended to assess. Prominent models of the neurobiology of depression implicate involvement of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The evidence from combined imaging and neuropsychological studies supports the involvement of the ACC, but is less clear in the case of the DLPFC. However, the limited number of such studies conducted to date means that conclusions must be tentative and further studies employing this combined approach may be of great value.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

fMRI study of recognition of facial expressions in high-functioning autistic patients.

Autistic disorder is associated with deficits in social function. The disorder may be related to dysfunction in the brain regions that are involved in the process of recognising facial expressions of other persons. Using fMRI, we investigated whether autistic patients with relatively high IQ would have different brain activation on the tasks of recognition of facial expressions (i.e. faces expressing disgust, fear, and happiness) compared with normal control subjects. In disgust and fear recognition tasks, there were different patterns of brain activation in the cortico-limbic neural circuits qbetween autistic and normal groups. Patients with autistic disorder may have difficulty in grasping facially expressed qemotions in others, and thereby cannot manipulate the interpersonally derived information.

Adolescent↗