Thank You Once Again for Your Excellent Articles!

I served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine (TJEM) from 2021 to 2023. During these years, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was the major problem in the world including Japan. We have received a lot of publications on COVID-19. Representative publications on COVID-19 published by the TJEM were “The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic” by Baloch et al. (2020), “Drive-through SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR swab testing” by Ishii et al. (2021), and “School restrictions and youth’s mental and physical health” by Okuyama et al. (2021). In addition, the TJEM published a serious case report on a pregnant woman with inherited antithrombin deficiency who suffered from fatal cerebral venous thrombosis after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Takikawa et al. 2022).

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. Fujii et al. (2023) analyzed 98,526,400 tweets in the Ukrainian language in order to capture the medical needs and mental health conditions in Ukraine. However, Russia-Ukraine war is still ongoing international conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In addition, Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023. It was reported that, as of January 20, 2024, more than 25,000 were killed since the war began on October 7, 2023; with more than 24,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank, and 1,200 deaths in Israel (https://cpj.org/2024/01/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/).

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck vast areas of southern Turkey and northwest Syria on February 6, 2023. The disaster in 2023 Turkey and Syria earthquake impacted at least 15.73 million people in Turkey and Syria, with over 55,000 lives lost and nearly 130,000 injured (https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2023-turkey-and-syria-earthquake-faqs). Moreover, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan on January 1, 2024 at 16:10 JST (Japan Standard Time). At 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake, the tsunami caused extensive damage on the Noto Peninsula, particularly in the towns of Wajima, Suzu, Anamizu and Noto. The local government confirmed 232 deaths in Ishikawa prefecture, as of 9:00 on January 18, 2024 (https://www.jrc.or.jp/english/relief/2024NotoPeninsulaEarthquake.html).

The world-wide life-threatening viral infectious diseases such as COVID-19, international armed conflicts and wars, and the devastating earthquakes may cause serious adverse effects on mental and physical health, particularly psychological trauma in children (Fig. 1). The mission of the TJEM is to publish peer-reviewed papers in all branches of medical sciences including basic medicine, social medicine, clinical medicine, nursing sciences, disaster medicine, and education for healthcare professionals. Therefore, we should contribute to good mental health, particularly in children and young people via articles published in the TJEM.

Terrible situations in the present world remind us of the importance of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Okonogi (2022) and Kitayama (2011) introduced the representative pioneers of psychoanalysis in Japan during the period before World War II; Yaekichi Yabe (1875-1945), Kiyoyasu Marui (1886-1953) and Heisaku Kosaka (1897-1968), all of whom Prof. Sigmund Freud had a huge influence on. In Japan, Yaekichi Yabe was a first psychoanalyst certified by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), and established the Tokyo branch of the IPA in 1930. In contrast, Kiyoyasu Marui was the first professor of the Department of psychiatry, Tohoku Imperial University, and established the Sendai Branch of the IPA in 1934 with the approval of Dr. Freud. Heisaku Kosaka was a younger colleague of Prof. Marui in the Department of psychiatry, Tohoku Imperial University, and then, organized the Japan psychoanalytical association in 1955. In addition, it is noteworthy that Osamu Kitayama, a psychoanalyst (1946- ), wrote lyrics for a number of songs such as “I Wish You Could Come Back Once More” (1971) and “Children Who Don’t Know War” (1970), mostly when he was a young medical college student (https://hakuoh.jp/pedagogy/pdf/Osamu_Kitayama_Bio.pdf).

The TJEM hopes to contribute to humanity and mental health for the people, not only in Japan but also in the world, particularly children and young people (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Thank you once again for your excellent articles!

The world-wide life-threatening viral infectious diseases, international armed conflicts and wars, and the devastating earthquakes and other disasters may cause serious adverse effects on mental and physical health, particularly psychological trauma in children. The TJEM hopes that your articles published by the TJEM can support mental health in the people, particularly children and young people.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

References

•  Baloch,  S.,  Baloch,  M.A.,  Zheng,  T. &  Pei,  X. (2020) The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 250, 271-278.
•  Fujii,  S.,  Kunii,  Y.,  Nonaka,  S.,  Hamaie,  Y.,  Hino,  M.,  Egawa,  S.,  Kuriyama,  S. &  Tomita,  H. (2023) Real-time prediction of medical demand and mental health status in Ukraine under Russian invasion using tweet analysis. Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 259, 177-188.
•  Ishii,  T.,  Kushimoto,  S.,  Katori,  Y.,  Kure,  S.,  Igarashi,  K.,  Fujita,  M.,  Takayama,  S.,  Abe,  M.,  Tanaka,  J.,  Kikuchi,  A.,  Abe,  Y.,  Imai,  H.,  Inaba,  Y.,  Iwamatsu-Kobayashi,  Y.,  Nishioka,  T., et al. (2021) Predictors of SARS-CoV-2 positivity based on RT-PCR swab tests at a drive-through outpatient clinic for COVID-19 screening in Japan. Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 253, 101-108.
•  Kitayama,  O. (2011) Freud and Japanese people (Freud to Nippon-Jin, in Japanese). Iwasaki Academic Publisher, Tokyo, Japan.
•  Okonogi,  K. (2022) A history of psychoanalysis in Japan. Journal of the Japan Psychoanalytic Society 4, 3-17.
•  Okuyama,  J.,  Seto,  S.,  Fukuda,  Y.,  Funakoshi,  S.,  Amae,  S.,  Onobe,  J.,  Izumi,  S.,  Ito,  K. &  Imamura,  F. (2021) Mental health and physical activity among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 253, 203-215.
•  Takikawa,  K.,  Doijiri,  R.,  Kimura,  N.,  Miyata,  A.,  Sonoda,  T.,  Yamazaki,  N.,  Egashira,  S.,  Oi,  K.,  Uchida,  H.,  Kato,  K.,  Oda,  M.,  Yokosawa,  M.,  Kikuchi,  T.,  Sugawara,  T. &  Takahashi,  H. (2022) Fatal cerebral venous thrombosis in a pregnant woman with inherited antithrombin deficiency after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 258, 327-332.