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Biomedical subjects

Y Shimazono

Publications and source records attributed to Y Shimazono.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

The activities of the Tokyo Center.

The main World Health Organization (WHO) activities of the Tokyo Center are as follows: (1) It performed the research project entitled 'A Bio-Psycho-Social Study on Children with Emotional and Behavioral Problems' in cooperation with the Beijing and Seoul Centers from 1985 to 1987. These results suggested that the deviant behavior of children in the general population had no biological background, but presumably stemmed from psychosocial disadvantages. (2) It has participated in a field trial for the proposed draft for chapter V of the ICD-10 as the Field Trial Coordinating Center in Japan since 1986 and the first Japanese edition of the ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders: Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines were published in 1993. (3) It proposed the collaborative project exploratory eye movements in patients with schizophrenia in 1989 and has promoted the project with the cooperation of six centers that included Beijing, Casablanca, Montreal, Munich, Prague and Sapporo. The findings of the present project indicated that exploratory eye movements may be specific to schizophrenia and can be practically used to discriminate schizophrenia without significantly depending on language.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Behavioral and neuroimaging studies on schizophrenia in Japan.

Chronic methamphetamine psychotics became a major problem in Japan after World War II. On one hand, the clinical symptoms of chronic methamphetamine psychotics were noted to resemble those of schizophrenics quite closely but, on the other hand, their respective personality profiles appeared to differ. Recent research on exploratory eye movements has also shown such similarities and differences. In long-term remitted chronic methamphetamine psychotics, extremely small doses of drugs, or stress, can be enough to cause a recurrence of symptoms. This phenomenon resembles the recurrence of schizophrenia, and animal experiments and basic research are being actively conducted in order to elucidate the mechanism involved. Some 20 years ago, unique studies were conducted that objectively looked at the characteristic behavior of severe chronic schizophrenics in a playground situation. Exploratory eye movements can also be regarded as a kind of behavior and, in this paper, eye movement patterns made in response to a maze test are discussed. In addition, much research on brain imaging in schizophrenia is being conducted in Japan and several interesting studies have also been chosen by the authors for presentation in this paper.

Brain↗
PubMed1992

Exploratory eye movements in schizophrenic patients and patients with frontal lobe lesions.

Exploratory eye movements in 20 schizophrenics, 18 patients with frontal lobe lesions (9 right-sided and 9 left-sided) and 20 normal controls were examined with an eye mark recorder while they viewed stationary S-shaped figures. The eye movements made during the subject's first 15-s viewing of an original figure were analyzed. Patients with right frontal lobe lesions (RF) and schizophrenics (S) had lower scores than normal controls (NC) for the number of eye fixations, total eye scanning length and mean eye scanning length. Each subject was then shown two other figures slightly different from the original and was requested to compare them with the original. After comparing them, the subject was asked the question, "Are there any other differences?" The eye movements made over the ensuing 5 s in response to this question were scored using the responsive search score (RSS). The RSS was low only in the S group. The subject was also asked to reproduce the original figure before and after making comparisons between the figures. The RF and S groups were poorer at reproduction than the NC group. These findings suggest that there is disordered function of the right frontal lobe in schizophrenia, and that schizophrenia is due not only to localized damage to one part of the brain but to more widespread damage.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Treatment of tardive dyskinesia with ceruletide: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

The effectiveness of a once-weekly i.m. injection of ceruletide (0.8 microgram/kg) in suppressing the symptoms of neuroleptic-induced tardive dyskinesia (TD) was evaluated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, matched-pairs study. Global evaluation of the severity of TD symptoms over the 8-week study period revealed a significant improvement with ceruletide as compared with placebo. Analysis of the therapeutic response to ceruletide over the course of treatment revealed a slow, but long-lasting improvement of TD symptoms. Side effects, which were mild and transient, consisted mainly of nausea and epigastric discomfort. The incidence of side effects did not differ between the ceruletide- and placebo-treated groups. Ceruletide appears to be a novel and practical treatment that can substantially alleviate the symptoms of dyskinesia.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Exploratory eye movements and neuropsychological tests in schizophrenic patients.

Exploratory eye movements in schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic subjects were examined with an eye mark recorder while the subjects viewed geometric figures. Elementary components of eye movements and the responsive search score (RSS), a function of the number of sections on which the subjects fixated, were measured by means of an eye movement analyzer and slow motion replay. The schizophrenic group and the depressed patient group had fewer eye fixations than the normal control group and the obsessive-compulsive disorder group. The schizophrenic group had a lower RSS average than patients with depression, patients with obsessive-compulsive disorders, or subjects in the normal control group. These results in conjunction with those of our previous studies suggest that a low RSS is specific to schizophrenia. We examined the relationship between these eye movements and neuropsychological tests and also investigated the relation between the eye movements and clinical symptoms by means of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia, and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. The RSS correlated positively with the performance IQ and Wechsler's Maze test, but not with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test or the verbal IQ result. The RSS also correlated negatively with negative symptoms. These results suggest that the RSS has two characteristic features: it is strongly associated with the interpersonal response and it may be connected with visuospatial and visuomotor functions including attention.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Eye movements in acute, chronic, and remitted schizophrenics.

Eye movements in 10 acute schizophrenics, 50 chronic schizophrenics, 20 remitted schizophrenics, 25 methamphetamine psychotics, 21 temporal lobe epileptics with left-sided spike focus (l-focus), 12 temporal lobe epileptics with right-sided spike focus (r-focus), and 50 normal controls were examined with an eye mark recorder while they viewed geometric figures. The eye movements while viewing an original "S"-shaped figure for 15 sec were analyzed. Each schizophrenic group and methamphetamine psychotics had significantly less eye fixations than the normal controls and temporal lobe epileptics (r-focus and l-focus). The chronic schizophrenics had significantly shorter mean eye scanning length (MESL) than the other six groups. Each subject was then shown two other figures slightly different from the original and was requested to compare them with the original. After comparing them, the subjects were asked the question, "Are there any other differences?" The 5-sec eye movements during the response to this question were scored using the Responsive Search Score (RSS). The schizophrenic groups had a significantly lower RSS than the nonschizophrenic patient groups and the normal controls. In the chronic schizophrenics, there was a significant negative correlation between the RSS and negative symptoms. These results suggest that the MESL can be an indicator of a chronic process of schizophrenia, and that lowering of the RSS may be a nosologically specific indicator for schizophrenia.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1989

Limited eye movement patterns in chronic schizophrenic patients.

Eye movements of 29 chronic schizophrenic patients and 23 normal control subjects were measured by an eye mark recorder during viewing of stationary geometric figures. The results suggested that the eye movements of schizophrenic patients were more limited than those of normal control subjects and that the abnormal eye movement inspection patterns in schizophrenic patients may reflect a lack of visual investigation of novel stimuli in the environment. Our findings, together with Moriya's (1979) observation of similar eye movement pattern abnormalities in the relatives of schizophrenic patients, support the hypothesis that the limited eye movement patterns may be a biological marker for schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Evolution of criteria for determination of brain death in Japan.

In 1974, the Japanese EEG Society's Ad Hoc Committee on Brain Death published criteria for determining brain death only in cases of acute gross primary brain lesions. In 1983, a new brain death study group was organized to re-evaluate these criteria. During a 6-month period from March 1, 1984, 217 neurosurgical and neurological clinics and emergency services throughout Japan reported 718 brain deaths caused not only by primary lesions but also by secondary brain lesions and diagnosed as such on the basis of the 1974 criteria excluding the condition of "abrupt fall of blood pressure followed by persistent hypotension". The data derived from the 718 cases in this collaborative study were pooled and analyzed, and it became known that the 1974 criteria still are generally reliable. Some changes have been made, however, and new criteria for determination of brain death adopted.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1985

Age development and sex differences of various EEG elements in healthy children and adults--quantification by a computerized wave form recognition method.

The EEGs of 1416 healthy subjects aged 6-39 years were recorded and 1 min of background activity from Fp1, C3 and O1, was analyzed by a computerized wave form recognition method. Age development and sex differences of various EEG elements, which are employed in a conventional clinical EEG assessment, were statistically analyzed. The age developments of alpha and theta showed regional differences and were the most rapid in O1 and the slowest in C3. The delta amplitude, theta amplitude, theta continuity and percentage time of theta with an amplitude of 30 microV or more, which are important in a clinical EEG assessment, reached a stable level at 18-21 years of age in the 3 leads. The percentage time, amplitude and continuity of alpha in the 3 leads reached a stable level at 22-25 years of age. Including the low voltage theta in Fp1 and C3, all of the EEG elements reached the stable adult level at 26-29 years of age. Since there was a large interindividual variability in these age developments, the regression curves of the 10th and 90th percentiles of these EEG elements can be considered as quantitative standards for clinical EEG evaluation. As for sex differences, the percentage alpha time and alpha continuity were greater in males than in females after adolescence. The percentage theta time in Fp1 and C3 was greater in females than in males during childhood. The percentage beta time was higher in females than in males at all ages. But overall, these sex differences were minor compared with the differences associated with age developments of the EEG elements.

Adolescent↗