Research activities on neurological disorders up to the present

To offer the best quality of life for patients suffering from various kinds of neurological disorders, I have been conducting numerous matters of clinical and basic research. My main interests include neurobiology and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. I also conduct research on demyelinating diseases and autoimmune disorders such as myasthenia gravis with our colleagues. We study the molecular mechanisms of AD, and are trying to develop a novel therapy for it. Accumulation of activated microglia in and around senile plaques has been demonstrated in autopsied brains from AD patients, and is believed to modulate amyloid-beta clearance, inflammation and oxidative stress. Findings from our recent research suggest that microglial activation changes with progression of AD expressing several marker molecules. To explore a novel therapy against PD, we evaluated the therapeutic effects of an alpha-7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist and human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells. Excitation?contraction (E?C) coupling of skeletal muscles has been a somewhat under-explored field in clinical neurophysiology. We have explored the impaired post-tetanic potentiation of muscle twitch and the effect of local cooling on E-C coupling in myasthenia gravis