Narrow Results

To examine the effectiveness of the herbal medicine prescription, Shu-Jing-Huo-Xue-Tang (SJHXT), for pain relief, we performed a study using rats with adjuvant arthritis (AA). After injecting the adjuvant, AA rats were maintained for 6 months as a chronic pain model. Starting at 6 months, SJHXT was administered for 12 weeks. We measured the tail skin temperature and locomotor activity of rats using thermography and a metabolism measuring system, respectively, before and after 12 weeks of SJHXT administration. Normal rats were used as controls. Before SJHXT administration, the tail surface temperature and locomotor activity were significantly lower in the AA rats than in the control rats. The tail skin temperature and locomotor activity of SJHXT-treated AA rats were significantly higher than those of the control rats. These findings suggest that the pain relief effects of SJHXT may be primarily due to increased blood circulation.

In order to examine the effects of Kami-kihi-to (KKT or Jia-Wei-Gui-Pi-Tang) on osteopenia, we measured bone mineral density using computed X-ray absorptometry and monitored metabolism and bone tissue in an ovariectomized (OVX) rat model.

Bone mineral density was significantly lower in the OVX group than in normal group 3 months after ovariectomy. However, the bone mineral density of the OVX group administered KKT was clearly higher than that of the untreated OVX group.

Locomotor activity was regular in the normal group and in the OVX groups before administration of KKT. After 6-month administration of KKT, in OVX groups, the pattern of locomotor activity became diphasic with clear active and resting phases, as was also observed in the normal group. The locomotor activity did not decrease in the OVX groups after administration of KKT. At 6 months, the continuity of the trabecular bone was higher in the OVX group administered KKT than in the untreated OVX group. These results indicate that KKT improved the menopausal symptoms and increased the locomotor activity of the OVX group, thereby increasing bone mineral density.

In recent decades, a strong focus has emerged on exploring the scale-independent nature of our daily spatial motion. Similarly, heavy-tailed distributions have been observed for human locomotor activity, measured by actigraphs in medical fields. We recently proved that the raw acceleration data and also the activity signals calculated from them in diverse ways exhibit a general spectral characteristic; 1/f noise is observable above a certain cutoff frequency, while white noise and peaks corresponding to daily rhythms are visible at lower frequencies. We show that this pattern is strikingly similar to what we found earlier for GPS data and this similarity raises fundamental questions like what is the relation between human mobility and physical activity, what are the benefits of the analysis from this perspective, and how it helps us to better understand and model the scale-independent nature of human dynamics.