Electrical excitation in the heart initiates from the sinoatrial node which is a physiological pacemaker located in the right atrium. Premature excitations originated from such as the pulmonary vein may induce arrhythmia. To establish a method to determine the origin of cardiac arrhythmia is required for radiofrequency catheter ablation treatment. The purpose of this study is to develop an system to find the origin of the premature excitation in the atria and ventricles from 12-lead electrocardiogram. Developed system can convert 12-lead electrocardiogram to vectorcardiogram, analyze vectorcardiogram for identifying the origin of premature excitation. We analyzed electrocardiograms recorded from healthy subjects and patients with premature beat. Characteristics of vectorcardiogram are clearly classified between healthy subjects and patients. Our system is useful to classify the healthy persons and patients in different groups. In this session, we will discuss the possibility of our system and methods to predict the origin of premature beat.

Multichannel magnetocardiography (MCG) using a SQUID sensor has been reported to have good spatial and temporal resolution power, and to allow detailed evaluation of the propagation of ventricular activation. At this session, we will report clinical utility of 64-channel MCG regarding the following: (1) the utility of MCG to predict later cardiac events in nonischemic cardiomyopathy patients with normal QRS duration, (2) isolated late right ventricular activation detected by MCG prediction of future lethal ventricular arrhythmic events in patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, (3) localization of the origin of premature ventricular contractions using three-dimensional (3D) MCG.

Background: Modulation of atrial fibrillation (AF) drivers after pulmonary-vein-isolation (PVI) has been proposed as one of the effective ablation strategies for non-paroxysmal AF (Non-PAF). However, the effectiveness is still controversial because optimal method for detecting AF drivers is unsolved. Methods: We developed an in silico and AI-integrated online real-time phase mapping system called "ExTRa Mapping" to quickly visualize AF wave dynamics. We applied the system to 24 Non-PAF patients and calculated non-passively activated period-to-recording time ratio (%NP). Results: ExTRa Mapping was not conducted in 8 patients because no AF was induced after PVI. In remaining 16 patients, ExTRa Mapping uncovered the non-passively activated areas (NPA) assumed to contain AF drivers. Acute effectiveness of the ExTRa Mapping-guided NPA (ExTRa-NPA) ablation was confirmed by %NP decrease; 65±12% to 36±20%. Non-recurrence rate of the ExTRa-NPA ablation was 81% for 7.7±4.0 months. Conclusion: ExTRa-NPA ablation might improve the long-term outcome of the Non-PAF ablation.

Nursing environment is a front line of medicine. Medical treatment and patient's safety will be improved, if useful equipment and system are provided to the nursing environment. Individual identification like a human and an object is effective in medical scene. Especially, UHF band passive RFID is useful for identification of the human and object without human error. The UHF band passive RFID is able to identify the target object even near the water residue. However, It has been reported that higher field intensity was measured from HF band and UHF band RFID reader at narrow space like an operation room. In this study, it is indicated that the usefulness of UHF band passive RFID. Safety way to use the RFID system is also indicated.

Nurse call system is installed in many hospitals and is used as an emergency call and a communication tools. Information includes a call from a patient, a signal from a biological information monitor, and a lot of information not requiring urgency. These information are useful for nurses to grasp the patient's condition, but too much information can be a factor in delaying response to patients. Due to temporal constraints, if it is not possible to cope at the same time, it is necessary to determine the order of priority and respond. We focused on the nurse-call-log. By analyzing the nurse-call-log, it is possible to clarify the load of nursing in the ward. We report that findings on the analysis of nurse-call-logs.

ICT for nurses has been developing to reduce not only their burden but also the risks for patients. Reducing their burden will make totally lower the risk because of their higher attention to the patients. This indirect effect was expected at introducing medical ICT system, which has maintained continuously sa well from the risk management. ICT may often supply some methods which draw the nurses' attention to the target risk, but the number of risks handled in the system will increase. Habituation to alerts on ICT can consequently increase the risks through randomly added alert signs on the display. We discuss the way for the optimization on the nursing risk management.

With the new reforms in the health policy in Japan, community health services now promote acute care; this brings in a new perspective to the role of nursing in the system. Therefore, the relation of nursing care with an acute setting is considered important. Further, as the Japanese government approves standardized nursing terminology, nursing information is now expected to spread to other hospitals as well. However, work flow and task procedures are different in all hospitals.. The Japan Association for Medical Informatics-the Nursing Information Special Interest Group established the Inpatient Care Device Working Group in 2016; and the WG is promoting careful use of such devices in nursing business process. In this organized session, we hope to discuss the future of nursing information systems on the basis of its partnership with clinical engineering. This study is supported by JSPS-Kakenhi Grand No. 16K12222.

Ward nurses identify patients' problems by examining clinical reports, measurement data, and nursing records; perform injections and other procedures according to physicians' instructions; formulate nursing plans; and judge the effects of nursing interventions. Real-time monitoring of information provided by patients became possible with biological devices and portable information devices (hereinafter, ward devices). Although currently limited to communications and labor saving, ward devices should contribute to early detection of patient problems to facilitate rapid and appropriate treatment and to recording and feedback of information to facilitate evaluation of medical and nursing practice. This can be achieved by identifying issues in routine ward practice and accurately communicating with vendors. Further discussion of utilization of ward devices with non-nursing staff is recommended, with consideration of possible changes in hospital ward practice.

It is the prerequisite for outpatients to go home after receiving medical care smoothly and safely. The most complicated consultation flow of outpatients is thought in the ophthalmology outpatient department. The reasons are listed as follows: Patient flow is complicated, almost of outpatients are elderly people, and outpatients with abnormal vision are forced movement in such complicated consultation flow. In the present study, we evaluated the enabling effect of the smartphones and tablet devices on the issues described above, changing a form of the nursing service, and the merits of outpatients.

In use of stem cells for regenerative medicine, standardization of the cell sample is essential as much as or more than the induction of differentiation into the necessary cells. For example, in the case of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), variation of cell function is large among cell lots, thus establishment of evaluation criteria and culture technology for ensuring the quality of MSCs are strongly required. In relation to this issue, involvement of culture history in mechanical environment has recently been reported, and the definition of mechanical field of culture has become a subject in quality ensurerance of MSC. In response to this problem, we have developped microelasticity patterning of the cell culture hydogels, and tried to manipulate input of the mechanical signals from the patterned mechanical field to the cells. In this presentation, we discuss the mechanical design of culture matrix which maintain the quality of stem cells.

Embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem cells recently attracted attention as materials and treatment methods for tissue regeneration. However, molecular mechanisms which lead to the cell differentiation into various specialized cells aren’t fully understood. It has been reported that the addition of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) to ES cell cultures promotes endothelial cell (EC) differentiation, whereas mural cells, including smooth muscle cells and pericytes, are induced by platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF). In this study, we examined the effects of shear stress or uni-axial stretching in ES differentiation. Shear stress markedly increased the expression of EC-specific markers, and the shear-induced differentiation into ECs were completely blocked by the VEGF receptor kinase inhibitor SU1498. Whereas, stretch significantly increased the mural cell markers, and the stretch-induced increases were completely blocked by the PDGF receptor inhibitor AG1296. These results indicate that hemodynamic forces selectively promote ES cell differentiation via mechanotransduction pathways.

Recent advancement of mechanobiological research contributes to understanding and cure of diseases, leading to the birth of mechanomedicine. Here we introduce innovative mechano-medical technologies that pursue clinical use. In dermal regenerative medicine, we performed co-culture of dermal keratinocytes and fibroblasts with stretch stimulus, and found thickening of dermal layer and facilitated basal membrane formation. In cardiac regenerative medicine, we found that exosomes released from stem cells in response to mechanical stimulus excrete paracrine factors and micro RNAs, and thus enhance therapeutic effect of cell therapy in vivo. In reproductive medicine, we applied mechanical stimulus to fertilized eggs using a tilting embryo culture system, and confirmed enhancement of blastocyst development rate. Exhaustive gene analysis suggested that the enhancement is due to alteration of gene expression at epiblast. We continue to reveal the mechanisms of biological response to mechanical stimulus, and pursue clinical application of mechano-medical therapy.

The weight-bearing exercises help to build bones and to maintain them strength. Bone is constantly renewed by the balanced action of osteoblastic bone formation and osteoclastic bone resorption both of which mainly occur at the bone surface. This restructuring process called "bone remodeling" is important not only for normal bone mass and strength, but also for mineral homeostasis. Bone remodeling is stringently regulated by communication between bone component cells such as osteoclasts, osteoblasts and osteocytes. An imbalance of this process is often linked to various bone diseases. During bone remodeling, resorption by osteoclasts precedes bone formation by osteoblasts. Based on the osteocyte location within the bone matrix and the cellular morphology, it is proposed that osteocytes potentially contribute to the regulation of bone remodeling in response to mechanical and endocrine stimuli.

The molecular mechanisms of tendon development and healing are not well understood yet. We generated Mohawk (Mkx)(-/-) rats by using CRISPR/Cas9. The Mkx(-/-) rats showed not systemic hypoplasia of tendons. In addition, we observed earlier heterotopic ossification of the Achilles tendon in Mkx(-/-) rats. Mechanical stimulation on tenocytes increased tenogenic-related genes expressions, such as collagen type (Col)1a1 and Col3a1, and reduced chondrogenic differentiation-related genes expressions, such as SRY-box (Sox)5, Sox6, and Sox9, via Mkx. This molecular network via Mkx would be a basis for tendon physiology and tissue engineering.

This presentation introduces automated endoscopic image diagnosis method based on machine learning. Especially we discuss effectiveness of machine learning in automated diagnosis of endoscopic images by showing automated pathological type diagnosis of colonic polyps from endocytoscopy images as examples. Machine learning research staring from perceptron or statistical pattern recognition has started in many years ago. Progress of high performance computing has enabled us to train neural network having very complex network architecture. Machine learning techniques are considered to help physicians to diagnose endoscopic images, where very higher skills are required for diagnosis. This presentation will show several automated diagnosis methods for endoscopic images. The first method classifies pathological types of colonic polyps by using hand-crafted feature values. SVM is utilized for classification. The second example is the method using CNN for automated classification. We will show these method from the technological viewpoint. Also we will discuss about training data generation.

Because the view angle of the endoscope is narrow, it is difficult to get the whole image of the digestive tract at once. If there are more than two lesions in the digestive tract, it is hard to understand the 3D positional relationship among the lesions. Because the virtual endoscopy is designed to detect the irregularity of the surface, it cannot detect lesions that lack irregularity including early cancer. In this study, we propose a method for generating unfolded view of the digestive tract using stereo endoscope images. By fitting the cylinder to the reconstructed three-dimensional shape of the digestive tract from obtained stereoscopic images, unfolded views of the digestive tract was generated. Moreover, we estimated the position change of the endoscope from sequential endoscopic images and stitched each unfolded views for expanding the area of the generated images and improving accuracy.

Several studies have been reported on maze tasks for rats. However, few studies have focused on maze tasks for human. The purpose of this study is to investigate factors influencing on the difficulty of mazes for human.We conducted an experiment. Subjects search for a goal of mazes by using a computer. Subjects explore mazes for two days. Fifteen mazes are prepared each day. In making mazes, we set the number of steps required to reach the goal and the number of T-junctions from start position to goal position. If a subject can reach the goal three consecutive times without extra steps, the subject moves on to the next maze. The result on first day, the difficulty of mazes is caused by the number of steps and T-junctions to the goal. The result on second day, the difficulty of mazes is caused by number of all T-junctions in the mazes.

Aim of this study is to examine the relationship between spatial recognition and frontal midline theta rhythm.EEG measurement was carried out with the International electrode system in the shielded room. It was used to 86dB of voltage amplification and analog BPF. Maze tasks were memory and trial tasks. The difficulties of maze task were adjusted by the number of turning points having T-junction and crossroads. 7 healthy subjects were participated with informed consent.In order to get the theta-band, digital BPF was used and EOG artifact was removed by Independent-Component-Analysis. Time-frequency analysis and singular-value-decomposition were used to identified the appearance interval of 6Hz. Finally, to examine the relationship between each electrode on surface of the head was used with coherence analysis.It was shown that the strong relation between Fz and electrode area surrounded it, and there was the weak relation between Fz and post area of the head.

We are developing Digital Mirror Box (DMB), a BMI rehabilitation system for stroke patients with hand paralysis. Aiming to train the motor-command generation from the affected hemisphere, DMB uses an event related desynchronization (ERD) derived from motor imagery as an operating signal of the BMI feedback. In order to assist the patients to perform motor imagery, the current DMB system presents a movie of hand motion, in which a hand-grasping motion picture is presented immediately after a still image of the fixation point. However, there remains a possibility that the detected ERD is influenced by an attentional switching from still to motion picture, not by motor imagery per se. We therefore modified the movie to contain a still image of a resting hand between fixation image and hand motion picture. We could successfully differentiate the mu-band suppression of the attentional switching from those derived from motor imagery.

We investigated the transition of event-related desynchronization (ERD) intensity through 6 days of brain-machine interface (BMI) training using Digital Mirror Box (DMB), which is a potential rehabilitation system for stroke patients with hand paralysis. Eleven healthy participants performed motor-imagery of grasping their dominant hand under the observation of hand movement video. The overall ERD strength of all participants showed a significant increase from day 1 to day 6. When the participants were divided into high and low ERD groups by their initial ERD strength of higher or lower than 0% at the initial measurement before BMI training, respectively, participants in low ERD group showed larger training effect. These results suggest that BMI training is particularly useful for increasing the ERD strength of stroke patients who have lower ERD strength.

Our study focus on the saccadic eye movements to elucidate movement's decision-making mechanism in human. In previous study, the posterior parietal cortex has relation to movement's decision-making. Therefore, we analyze EEG signals on P3 and P4 electrodes. We performed the Memory-Guided-Saccade-Task (MGST) as followings. There are three fixation points on a display.Firstly, the Direction-Cue is represented by either a right- or left-arrow on the center fixation for 0.2[sec]. Next, the Go-Cue is represented by the auditory stimulus after 2.5~3.0[sec] at disappearance of the Direction-Cue. And then, the subject gaze at the fixation indicated by the Direction-Cue after presenting the Go-Cue. The Direction-Cue is represented 100 times (each right- and left-arrow 50 times). The auditory stimulus is pure tone of 1000[Hz] and is represented for 0.1[sec]. As results, the difference of positive potentials between the movement and non-movement task is observed after 0.2[sec] at presenting the Direction-Cue

Trail Making Test (TMT) is one of the most commonly used neuropsychological tests to assess attention and executive functions. In the present study, we investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) related to target matching in TMT. In the experiments, one of cue stimuli (TMT-A: 1-10, TMT-B: 1-E) was presented to subjects. A correct or incorrect target stimulus appeared after the subjects imaged a target according to the TMT rules. ERP analyses showed that, in both TMT parts, N2 and P3 components were observed around 300 and 450 ms after the target stimulus appeared. Amplitude and latency of the N2 and P3 components were larger and longer in the incorrect target condition compared with those in the correct target condition. Furthermore, amplitude and duration of the P3 in TMT-B were lower and longer than those in TMT-A. These properties of the N2-P3 complex reflect brain activity related to target matching in TMT.

In this report, development of a stressor evaluation system with image conversation comparing our formerly developed system with onomatopoeia was described. It is thought that stress reduction is possible by grasping eustressors and by doing aggressive coping. By such a principle, we have already developed the system which grasped these eustressors. And it was revealed that continuation of the use of the system was important to take the coping action. By the way, "image conversation" is a communication style of the mobile phone using images such as "emoji (emoticon)" or "LINE's stamps". Before we assumed the character (onomatopoeia) input with the mobile phone in consideration of convenience, but, by the spread of so-called smartphones, we hypothesized that the communication using images was simpler and easier. The results showed this image conversation system was much better than the onomatopoeia system from the questionnaires of 17 volunteers in 7 days trial.

Heart rate variability (HRV) quantitatively evaluates the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic functions, which is recognized as a promising biomarker to objectively diagnose of major depression disorder (MDD). We have found that the response of HRV indices under mental task condition (random number generation) were different in patients with MDD. Therefore, we propose an objective depression screening method by HRV analysis using neural network (NN) in this paper. Input layer of NN was the HRV indices and heart rate before, during, and after mental task, whereas the output layer represents the probabilities of MDD. To evaluate the performance of NN, we repeated training the NN with leave-one-out cross-validation scheme on 44 drug-naive patients with MDD and 47 healthy control subjects. The result showed that the patients can be detected with approximately 76% in untrained testing data.

In order to achieve an objective major depressive disorder (MDD) screening, we developed an MDD screening system via linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Using transient responses induced by multiple mental tasks that random number generation (RNG) task and verbal fluency (VF) task, the system discriminates MDD patients from normal subjects using heart rate variability (HRV) indices and cerebral blood flow determined by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The screening was conducted on twelve MDD patients (32±15 years) and 30 control subjects (37±17 years). The mental work load procedures are composed of "Pre-task rest", "Undergoing task", and "After-work rest" sections. When we adopted only RNG task, the system indicated 83.3% sensitivity and 93.8% specificity and with only VF task, the sensitivity and specificity were 75% and 90%, respectively. However using multiple tasks, we were able to obtain 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity with our proposed system.

EEG (electroencephalography) has been used in both clinical for diagnosing neurological diseases and medical technology for developing a Brain machine interface since Dr. Hans Berger first reported human EEG in 1929.<br>EEG is a non-invasive method of investigating brain function with excellent time resolution (msec order), however its used has been limited in clinical because of insufficient spatial resolution. Dense array EEG which has over 100 electrodes and is easy attachment appeared at the beginning of 2000's. Dense array EEG enables us to capture the brain activities with both high time and spatial resolution.<br>In this session, I introduce dense array EEG and show some clinical cases with epilepsy. Also we have discussion for further application possibility of EEG and NIRS as non- invasive method of investigating bran function.

Roy and Sherrington showed brain activity caused cerebral blood flow (CBF) change in 1890. Lassen first demonstrated regional CBF using 133Xe in the 1970s. Phelps et al then also showed increase in glucose metabolism (CMRGlc) using 18F-FDG and PET. Raichle and Fox found that neuronal activation induced uncoupled increase in CBF and cerebral oxygen consumption (CMRO2) using 15O-gas and PET in 1980s. This broke the existing physiology that CBF and CMRO2 were always parallel. The uncoupling between CBF and CMRO2 opened a new era of neurosciences, namely difference of change in concentration ratios between oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin induced noninvasive imaging of neural activity of functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI). We will present the history of the neuroimaging relating to neuronal activity, nuclear medicine findings of uncoupled responses of CBF and CMRO2 with neuronal activity, and recent microscopic physiological observations during neuronal activity.

Over the past 20 years, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been widely used to measure the brain activity. The primary form of fMRI uses the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast, in which hemoglobin in a red blood cell is used as an endogenous contrast agent, based on the difference in magnetic properties of oxyhemoglobin (diamagnetic) and deoxyhemoglobin (paramagnetic). In the physical basis, the presence of paramagnetic deoxyhemoglobin in blood vessels causes changes in the local magnetic field gradients that decrease MR signal. In the physiological basis, when neuronal activity increases, the blood flow increases to overcompensate the increased oxygen metabolism. The mismatch between the blood flow and the oxygen consumption leads to the paradoxical increase in MR signal with increased neuronal activity. In this tutorial lecture, we will explain the complex mechanism underlying the BOLD signal, which is needed to correctly interpret the fMRI data.

Peripheral nerve block (PNB) is an anesthesia that injects anesthetic around peripheral nerve to block pain transmission. Ultrasound-guided PNB can visualize needle position and spread of anesthetic on the sonogram. However, it requires high skill for anesthesiologist. Objective of the research is to develop a system that predict needle path and tip position to perform PNB accurately and safely. First, images of needle marked at 20 and 10mm intervals are taken by two small USB cameras and the needle is automatically recognized by image processing. 3D position of the marks on the needle are measured, and finally inserted positions and angles are calculated. Average of insert position error was 0.38 mm and that of vertical and horizontal angle error were 1.01 and 0.32 degree respectively. It is assumed that results wasn't enough for supporting needle puncture of 5mm peripheral nerve, but enough for 13mm brachial plexus.

In this study, we proposed a mathematical to reproduce the dynamic characteristics of microsaccades (MSs). MS is a component of fixation eye movements and occurs involuntarily even when gazing at a specific visual target. We obtained certain length of segments which contain an MS from fixation eye movements, and calculated ensemble averages of them. Since the amplitude of MS varies widely and also changes depending on the shape of fixation target, we categorized the MS amplitude at intervals of 0.3 deg and calculated ensemble averages for each category. As a result, it is shown that dynamic characteristics of MS are described by combination of nonlinear functions which have amplitude, overshoot, and displacement of line of sight as parameters. By combining with conventional model which reproduces the mean square displacement characteristic of fluctuation of

Noise induced by a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system in a vehicle is an important factor that affects the comfort of the interior of a car cabin. Much effort has been devoted to reduce noise levels, however, there is a need for a new sound design that addresses the noise problem from a different point of view. In this study, focusing on the auditory impression of automotive HVAC noise concerning coolness and warmness, psychoacoustical listening tests were performed using a paired comparison technique under various conditions of room temperature. Five stimuli were synthesized by stretching the spectral envelopes of recorded automotive HVAC noise to assess the effect of the spectral centroid, and were presented to normal-hearing subjects. Results show that the spectral centroid significantly affects the auditory impression concerning coolness and warmness; a higher spectral centroid induces a cooler auditory impression regardless of the room temperature.

Video pulse waves can be extracted from a green component included in video signals of a human body taken with a video camera. The video pulse wave is superior to photoelectric-plethysmogram (PPG) because the video pulse wave can provide us with two dimensional pulsatile information of blood perfusion under the skin in a remote and non-contact fashion. In the presentation, methods of estimation of blood pressure variability by using video pulse waves will be introduced, and methods of overcoming the defects of the video pulse wave such as sensitivity of body movement and light intensity will be discussed.

Conventional blood pressure measurement is performed by compressing the upper arm with a cuff and temporarily stopping arterial blood. Therefore, the conventional cuff-type blood pressure monitor cannot continuously measure, and to use the cuff, the equipment also gets bigger. Cuffless blood pressure estimation method using photoplethysmography sensor capable of continuous measurement attracts attention. In the cuffless method, blood pressure is estimated from the waveform shape of the pulse wave. At that time, since the pulse wave has poor undulation and the baseline varies, the derivative pulse wave is used. However, the undulation of the backward wave of the derivative pulse wave may become unclear due to the influence of noise. In this research, in order to solve this problem, we propose a level crossing feature.

The blood pressure variation (BPV) at night is closely related to the incidence of cardiovascular disease, and there is a compelling need for realization of continuous blood pressure monitoring without burden during sleep. In this study, for the purpose of estimating continuous BPV while sleeping, we focused on the influence due to the difference in (seating / supine) postures at the time of measurement. In the method of estimating the BPV from the form parameter of the photoplethysmograph, it is investigated how the difference in posture affects the pulse wave parameter and estimation accuracy. First, the effect of normalizing the pulse wave parameter to absorb the difference in posture was investigated by experiment. Next, by preparing a learning database for each posture, we constructed a dedicated estimation equation for each posture. Furthermore, we tried to estimate the BPV in sleeping period by using this supine posture learning database.

New Orange Plan proposed by Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare shows the direction of care for the elderly should be done at their houses. In this presentation, needs of cooperation between medical care and nursing care of patients living in their houses are analyzed and discussed about the information technology in the future.

Aging of community is social problem.The elderly population in a community may have normal health or suffer from disorders such as dementia and frailty.They also have problems related to ingrown toenails and hallux valgus and show decreased capabilities of walking and increased risks of falling.Eighty-two elderly people with frailty and dementia participated in this study.All subjects underwent medical foot care to study the lower limb muscle strength, foot pattern, and behavior.The study results showed that the lower limb muscle strength improved by approximately 1.1 to 1.2 times.The subjects also showed an increased participation in social activities, which is indicative of changes in mental health.

It is reported that exercise can help to improve or prevent some cases of dementia in the elderly. We developed a health mileage incentive system to capture activity information on the middle-aged and elderly. In this system, a pedometer with NFC capability was provided to participants, and the number of walking steps and the activity range was captured from 26 devices installed in locations around the city. The total number of subjects was 1711 persons. Evaluated items include lower limb muscle strength, body composition, and a subset of the participants had blood composition analysis performed for HbA1c. The results for walking steps was 9439 steps/day for the 65-74 age range, and 8384 steps/day for ages 75 and older. In most groups the lower limb muscle strength improvement was significant, and for body composition, the underweight group had an increase in BMI, while the overweight group had a reduction in BMI.

To investigate the ability of fNIRS to measure the functional connectivity and resting state network of human brain, we performed a simultaneous measurement of human brain using fMRI and fNIRS during finger tapping. By using independent component analysis (ICA) of fMRI data and calculating correlations of its resulting time course of network components and fNIRS data, we showed that fNIRS can measure the functional connectivity networks of human brain which has been measured by fMRI. The results also suggest the possibility of indirect fNIRS measurement and estimation of activity of deep area of human brain which is too distant from head surface to measure by fNIRS directly.

Color is one of the fundamental information in human vision. However, cortical representation of color information is not well understood. It is known that differences of cone responses represent color information at the lower levels of visual system and the higher order visual tasks, e.g., color memory, use categorical representation. We investigated the color representation in human visual cortex by measuring brain activities in adults and in infants. The fMRI study using differential phase encoding technique and adaptation experiments revealed that neural systems that selectively respond to intermediate colors are present at the level of primary visual cortex. The NIRS study in prelingual infants was conducted by investigating cortical response changes while presenting color pairs that span across a border of color category or that stays within a category. The result revealed that the categorical color representation is already. Implications from these studies will be discussed in the talk.

Visual speech information presented synchronously with speech sound can affect speech perception. The left superior temporal sulcus (STS), which receives neural projections from both auditory and visual cortices, is known to be important for the audio/visual (A/V) multimodal coupling. However, speech processing in the auditory cortex, an earlier processing site than the STS in auditory signal processing, might be modulated by the visual effects conveyed via the direct corticocortical (visual cortex to auditory cortex) pathway, which does not involve the STS. Regarding the visual effects on the auditory cortex, the latencies of the N100m response to monosyllables are shortened. Moreover, the amplitudes of those responses are decreased by the simultaneous presentation of visual speech information. In the present paper, the effects of visual speech (the moving image of the speaker's face uttering speech sound) on early auditory evoked fields (AEFs) were examined in relation to psychophysical lip-reading effects.

Silicone resin is applied to many medical devices. However, hydrophobic surface causes thrombus formation when blood contacts with it. To improve the problem, P4 polymer that is the random polymer of 2-Metacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcoline (MPC), 3-(Metacryloyloxy) propyl-tris (trimetylsilyoxy) silane (MPTSSi) and 3-Methacryloxypropyl trimethyloxysilane (MPTMSi) are expected. Antithrombogenicity of this polymer was shown to be good with in vitro experiments. However, it is not shown sufficiently with in vivo experiments. Then, we attempted in vivo experiments. The artificial silicone vessel coated with the P4 polymer was inserted in the internal jugular vein of goat. However, the silicone vessel was closed few days after surgery. The reason was thought to be insufficient treatment of the end edge of it. We are planning to perform in vivo experiments using P4 polymer-coated canulae of the ventricular assist device.

β-TCP cement (mβ-TCP) powder modified using ball-milling was mixed with CaCl2 solution and NaH2PO4 solution at a total powder-to-liquid (P/L) ratio of 2.5. Compressive strength (CS) of set cement was evaluated, and the phase constitution was analyzed using X-ray-diffractometry (XRD). To clarify the effect of setting conditions on setting and degradation of cement, cement paste was set in air and set in the simulated-body-fluid (SBF). In addition, cement paste was filled into the molds, and the molds were inserted to the subcutaneous fascia of rat's backs to evaluate in vivo setting and degradation.The set cements exhibited higher CS values than those with lower P/L ratio and sufficient injectability, simultaneously. CS values of cement set in SBF and in vivo were not significantly different, they were significantly smaller than those of set in air. XRD profiles of cements set in vivo and SBF showed peaks of hydroxyapatite and β-TCP.

The Enhanced Permeability and Retention (EPR) effect is considered to be a landmark principle in systemic tumor-targeting chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is used for the treatment of lung metastasis in clinics. However, the EPR effect in the lung metastasis has not been fully investigated. In this study, we evaluate the EPR effect in a mouse model of lung metastasis.Luciferase expressing tumor cells were inoculated into MXH10/Mo/lpr mice to induce lung metastasis. Lung metastasis was activated by dissecting the subiliac lymph node. The EPR effect in the metastatic lung was quantified by accumulation of intravenously injected ICG liposomes. Luciferase activity as well as fluorescence intensity were measured using bioluminescence and biofluorescence imaging. The harvested tissues were analyzed by HE and anti-CD31 staining. Herein, we found that no ICG liposome accumulation was detected in the metastatic lung and the EPR effect was not observed in the mouse model of lung metastasis.