Tetsuya Kondo

Background: Oriental medicine is based on the 5-phase theory, in which the balance among the 5 viscera - the liver, the heart, the spleen, the lung and the kidney - is important. It is confusing that the viscera in Oriental and Occidental medicine have the same name. Out of the 5 viscera in Oriental medicine, it is the spleen that differs most from...

We would like to express appreciation to the authors for their excellent contributions and patience in assisting us. Finally, the fundamental work of all reviewers on these papers is also very greatly acknowledged.

Background: There is no report on traditional Chinese patterns associated with stress-related disorders such as eating disorder, pain disorder, primary insomnia, functional dyspepsia, irritable bowel syndrome, hyperventilation syndrome, bronchial asthma, and dystonia. Therefore, a large-size case-control study was conducted. Methods: A total of 914...

Background: Since, to our knowledge, there is no report on age-related changes in the patterns associated with anxiety and mood disorders, a large-size case-control study was conducted. Methods: A total of 914 new cases were assessed at a psychosomatic clinic of a tertiary medical care center. The severity of visceral patterns was analyzed accordin...

Acupuncture and moxibustion, which medical doctors are licensed by the government of Japan to perform, can improve the psychological relationship between doctors and patients, especially when it is disturbed by a "game", a dysfunctional interpersonal interaction that is repeated unintentionally. This advantage is due to the essential properties of...

In order to investigate whether there clinically exist patterns in traditional Chinese medicine, which are specific combination of symptoms and signs, the results of four examinations were analysed. The subjects were 44 new male patients who consulted clinics for

The purpose of this study is to clarify the Qi-blood-fluid patterns of psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, somatoform disorders and psychosomatic disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, functional dyspepsia, etc. according to oriental medicine. The subjects were all new cases who consulted the psychoso...

Patients with suicidal ideation (SI) have various mental or somatic symptoms. A questionnaire-based interview elicited details concerning mental and somatic symptoms in patients visiting a psychosomatic clinic in Japan. Univariate logistic regression analyses followed by multiple regression models using a stepwise method were selected for identifyi...

Fatigue is evoked not only by peripheral factors, such as muscle fatigue, but also by the central nervous system (CNS). For example, it is generally known that the feeling of fatigue is greatly influenced by psychological aspects, such as motivation. However, little is known about the central mechanisms of fatigue. The clinical symptoms of chronic...

Recent figures show that more than 30,000 people suicide each year in Japan, and that many of them are considered to suffer from depression. In addition, the suicide rate among Japanese women has been shown to be higher than in other countries. However, it is not clear whether the psychiatric symptoms leading to suicide differ by gender. The author...

The Japanese suicide rate has been increasing rapidly. This phenomenon may be potentially attributable to the increase in the incidence of several mental disorders such as depression. Sleep disorders are the most frequent physical symptoms observed in depression, and are considered to be common complaints in general medical clinics. The objective o...

Immunologically induced fatigue was induced in rats by intraperitoneal injection of a synthetic double-stranded RNA, polyriboinosinic : polyribocytidylic acid (poly I:C). An injection of poly I:C (3 mg/kg) decreased the daily amounts of spontaneous running wheel activity to approximately 60% of the preinjection level until day 8. Quantitative analy...

Premature discontinuation of antidepressant treatment is associated with an increased risk of relapse. There is, however, little evidence concerning comparative discontinuation rates of different classes of antidepressants such as tricyclic antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and atypical antidepressants such as sulpiride. We...

Somatic symptoms are known to be the major manifestation in patients with depression. The aim of the present study was to investigate the major somatic and psychiatric symptoms associated with depression in each sex. Patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of depressive disorders (n=335) and comparison patients without depression (n=425) among new outpati...

To investigate the age-related changes in the expression of interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) and its related substances in the brain during heat stress, we measured amounts of mRNAs for IL-1beta, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and an inhibitor of nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB-beta (IkappaB-beta) that is known to reflect an activation of NF-kappaB, in the corte...

Following 2 weeks acclimation to the running wheel in the home cages, an i.p. injection of a synthetic double-stranded RNA, polyriboinosinic:polyribocytidylic acid (poly I:C, 3 mg/kg), was performed to produce the immunologically induced fatigue in rats. The daily amounts of spontaneous running wheel activity decreased to about 40-60% of the preinj...

The effects of recombinant mouse stem cell factor (rmSCF) on paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) and long-term potentiation (LTP) in the mossy fiber (MF)-CA3 pathway were examined in mouse hippocampal slices by recording field EPSPs. When PPF was measured before and 30 min after tetanic stimulation, the initial PPF positively correlated with the amplit...

To determine the influence of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sensory C fibers on cell-mediated immunity, the time course of allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) was examined in normal, adrenalectomized (ADX) and capsaicin (CAP)-treated rats. Five days after sensitization with 2,4-dinitro-1-fluorobenzene (DNFB) onto the back, rats we...

The splenic NK (natural killer) cell activity in rats was suppressed by a noninflammatory stress, immobilization (IMB), which was associated with an activation of the splenic sympathetic nerve (SSN) as well as the hypothalamic—pituitary—adrenal (HPA) axis. We have recently shown that IMB-induced suppression of the splenic NK cell activity was atten...