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After the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11th, 2011, a journalist visited the disaster area with febrile symptoms and was diagnosed with measles of the D genotype, which is not indigenous to Japan. After continuing activities in disaster areas and Tokyo, 11 measles cases were reported, some of which were identified as genotype D. Meanwhile non-profit activities directed towards volunteers were offered including interviews to screen for subjective symptoms, check body temperature and advise volunteers to refrain from working in shelter areas during the period of sickness. As a consequence, disease transmission was controlled among volunteers. In disaster areas, anyone can be an infection vector. In order to prevent transmission of infectious diseases, a field action plan, which includes body temperature checks and standard precautions should be formulated and put into place. If the action plans are shared among local governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), they can become a norm and be expected to control infectious disease transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Proprioceptive afferent input from neck muscles plays an important role in postural control. Forward head posture has the potential to impair proprioceptive information from neck muscles and contribute to postural control deficits in patients with neck pain. This study investigated whether induced forward head posture affects postural control in healthy participants when compared to natural head posture. Centre of pressure sway area, distance covered and mean velocity were measured during 30s of static standing using a force platform with 25 healthy individuals (mean age±SD=20.76±2.19 years) in 8 different conditions. Base of support, eyes open or closed and natural or forward head posture varied within these testing conditions. The majority of comparisons between natural and forward head posture were not statistically significant (p >0.05). This suggests that induced forward head posture in young healthy adults does not challenge them enough to impair postural control. Future studies should evaluate whether forward head posture affects postural control of individuals with chronic neck pain. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: We investigated the distribution of wall shears stress (WSS) within the carotid artery bifurcation of healthy volunteers and patients with internal carotid artery stenosis. WSS was determined by flow-sensitive 4D MRI and correlated with bifurcation angle, vessel tortuosity and the ratio of the diameter of the common (CCA) and internal carotid artery (ICA). Critical WSS occurred at the posterior wall of the physiologically dilated ICA bulb and the incidence of critical WSS values was dependent from individual bifurcation geometry. Moreover, we found that ICA stenosis changed physiological WSS distribution whereas carotid endarterectomy partially restored physiological WSS conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the relationship between body mass index and gray matter (GM), comparison patterns of neural activation to food items, and food desire of healthy volunteers.

Objective To study the topography and neurophysiological differences in cortical motor representations of hand flexor and extensor muscles during motor imagery (MI). Methods Seven healthy volunteers (age 27 ± 3.4) were enrolled. Navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation was performed for mapping mm. Flexor digitorum superficialis, extensor digitorum communis cortical areas at rest and during MI (fingers flexion or extension). We assessed cortical excitability changes by the dynamics of motor threshold (MT) and paired stimuli with interstimulus intervals 2 ms (SICI) and 12 ms (ICF). Results The localization of flexor and extensor “hotspots” was different with a range of 1 cm. MT decreased during MI significantly from 50% to 47% at the flexor hotspot and from 47% to 46% at the extensor hotspot compared to resting state. There was observed the decrease of ICF during MI of both movements compared to resting state. SICI was reduced during imagery of flexion and enhanced during imagery of extension movement. Conclusions Further we will train the participants to imagine hand extension with brain–computer interface with evaluation the neurophysiological difference between trained and untrained. Topographic and neurophysiological differences of cortical motor representations of differentiated movements during MI can be the basis of new non-invasive brain–computer interface approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis of the experimental drug that has left six volunteers critically ill by a German company TeGenero. The company has developed the antibody, called TGN1412, that activates the immune system's T cells, failed to supply the data during the trials to the regulatory authorities. The article also presents that this was caused by an unexpected biological effect of the drug, and animal tests do not predict the side effects in human trials.

The detection of foreign DNA from the fingernail hyponychium may be relevant in the investigation of certain criminal acts, providing evidence of any sort of contact between the victim and the suspect. In this report, we analyzed results obtained from 164 fingernail samples collected by three different methods: extraction, clipping and swabbing. Samples were taken, mostly during the autopsy operation, and submitted to our Lab in the context of 71 different criminal cases. In 74.6% of the reviewed cases, a reportable DNA profile which matched the victims was recovered. In 13.2% of these profiles, foreign DNA was also detected as a minor contributor, representing almost a 10% of the analyzed cases. The estimated prevalence of foreign DNA samples beneath fingernails is comparable with that reported from volunteer donors screenings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkish Cypriot DNA Laboratory (TCDL) operates under the Turkish Cypriot Member Office of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP). TCDL contributes to the UN-led CMP Project on Exhumation, Identification and Return of Remains of Missing Persons and also plays a leading role in the establishment of forensic genetic services in North Cyprus. A family reference sample (FRS) bank comprising the relatives of the Turkish Cypriot missing persons (MiPs) from the 1963/64 and 1974 era was established first. Since 2012, TCDL assumed full responsibility for DNA typing of all Turkish Cypriot FRSs, which are then used for familial DNA matching with those for the skeletal remains exhumed from all over Cyprus and analyzed at international laboratories such as ICMP and Bode Technology. Using a second sample bank comprising Turkish Cypriot volunteer samples, TCDL also conducts population studies for requisite statistical evaluations of MiP identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Because of similarities with overt movement execution, motor imagery is considered as a way to study motor recovery after stroke. However, some studies could not correlate motor imagery abilities with motor function at the subacute stage of stroke challenging motor imagery as a substitute to motor execution in these patients. The aim of this study was to compare explicit and implicit motor imagery abilities in stroke patients and in healthy subjects, to correlate those with motor function and investigate the role of lesion side and location on performances. Methods Twenty-two stroke patients at the subacute stage and 22 healthy volunteers performed implicit and explicit motor imagery tasks (Hand Laterality Judgment Task [HJLT], imagined and executed self-paced hand movements) and a motor assessment (maximal grip strength, Jebsen-Taylor Test [JTT]). Differences between healthy subjects and patients and the impact of lesion side and location on motor imagery were studied using ANOVA. Correlation coefficients were used to analyze the relationship between motor imagery abilities and motor function. Results For implicit imagery in HLJT, stroke patients had slower reaction times ( P ≤ 0.03) and tended to have higher rates of errors ( P = 0.05) but shared similar characteristics (angle effect: P ≤ 0.01) compared to healthy subjects. For explicit imagery, patients were slower than healthy subjects for the affected hand in the executed condition ( P = 0.04) and tended to be slower in the imagined condition ( P = 0.06). Patients and healthy subjects exhibited a temporal congruence ( P ≤ 0.004) except for right-sided strokes ( n = 8) and patients with parietal damages ( n = 9) for the affected hand. Finally, in stroke patients, implicit and explicit imagery performances were not correlated with upper limb function. Conclusion Caution must be taken to use motor imagery as a tool for monitoring stroke recovery because subacute stroke patients exhibit motor imagery deficits, independently of the severity of motor impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Maximizing the extent of resection whilst preserving important brain functions is a major goal in the surgical treatment of brain tumours. For primary motor functions, the presurgical diagnostic techniques such as functional MRI (fMRI) and navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have improved a lot over the last decades and are extremely useful for preoperative risk evaluation and planning of the surgical approach. By contrast, presurgical mapping techniques for language-relevant areas are regarded poorly reliable (fMRI) and/or rather unspecific (repetitive TMS, rTMS). Methods We investigated the retest reliability of neuronavigated rTMS for speech/language mapping in 11 right-handed healthy volunteers in 3 consecutive sessions, spaced by 2–5 (short term) and 21–40 (long term) days. Navigated 10 Hz rTMS (Nexstim eXimia 4.2) was applied over the dominant hemisphere after determination of the individual inhibition threshold over the primary motor representation of the face/tongue. The bursts were triggered to picture presentation (naming task) without delay (picture-to-trigger interval = 0). Errors were categorised as follows: arrest, delay, anomia, dysarthria, semantic and phonematic paraphasia. Results As shown in Table 1 , a good feasibility in terms of the evocation of errors was observed. Per session, speech delays occurred most frequently (9.2 ± 2.1), followed by dysarthria (5.1 ± 2.4) and speech arrests (3.8 ± 1.8) whilst paraphasias were rather rare. There was a high variability in the distribution and the frequency of speech errors between the subjects. The reliability of the error frequency was rather good regarding long-term comparisons (Cohen’s weighted Kappa k = 0.41 [session 1–3]/ k = 0.42 [session 2–3]) and still fair for the short-term ( k = 0.29 [session 1–2]). Analyses of the spatial reliability of error representation are ongoing. Conclusions Presurgical speech/language mapping by neuronavigated rTMS is a promising tool to improve the risk evaluation and the planning of the surgical approach. In this preclinical study a rather satisfactory retest reliability of rTMS mapping at 10 Hz could be shown. However, since the method is still young, optimisation of the stimulation protocol and further intraoperative validation in clinical trials are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the need for increased reporting of clinical drug trial results to databases such as the U.S. website ClinicalTrials.gov, particularly those indicating questionable efficacy or side effects of the drugs in question. Topics include efforts by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase reporting regulations, and the need for transparency to ensure the volunteers enter trials full aware of potential side effects.