Sung Min Kim

MOG-Abs may be a disease-specific biomarker in adult patients with IDD who have a disease distinct from NMO or MS. The radiologic as well as clinical manifestations of MOG-Ab patients can be useful in their differential diagnosis.

Painful tonic spasm is a common symptom in NMO. When associated with myelitis, it is relatively specific to patients with NMO and is most commonly observed during recovery from the first myelitis episode. Patients with NMO presenting with myelitis at disease onset appear to be at higher risk for developing PTS compared with other patients with NMO.

The recent developments of new devices and advances in anesthesiology have greatly improved the utility and accuracy of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IOM). Herein, we review the basic principles of the electrophysiological methods employed under IOM in the operating room. These include motor evoked potentials, somatosensory evoked potentials, electroencephalography, electromyography, brainstem auditory evoked potentials, and visual evoked potentials. Most of these techniques have

This study aimed to evaluate the levels of three major hydroxycholesterols (24-, 25-, and 27-hydroxycholesterols) in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), as well as to show their role in the pathogenesis of ALS experimental models. The level of 25-hydroxycholesterol were higher in untreated ALS patients (n = 30) than in controls without ALS (n = 33) and ALS patients treated with riluzole (n = 9) both in their serum and CSF. The level of 25

BACKGROUND: Patients with ALS may be exposed to variable degrees of chronic intermittent hypoxia. However, all previous experimental studies on the effects of hypoxia in ALS have only used a sustained hypoxia model and it is possible that chronic intermittent hypoxia exerts effects via a different molecular mechanism from that of sustained hypoxia. No study has yet shown that hypoxia (either chronic intermittent or sustained) can affect the loss of motor neurons or cognitive function in an in vi

BACKGROUND: Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder with aquaporin4-immunoglobulin G (NMOSD-AQP4) is an inflammatory disease characterised by a high female predominance. However, the effect of gender in patients with NMOSD-AQP4 has not been fully evaluated. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of gender in clinical manifestations and prognosis of patients with NMOSD-AQP4. METHODS: The demographics, clinical and radiological characteristics, pattern reversal visual evoked p

In this study, we applied DNA barcoding to identify species using short DNA sequence analysis. We examined the utility of DNA barcoding by identifying 53 Korean freshwater fish species, 233 other freshwater fish species, and 1339 saltwater fish species. We successfully developed a web-based molecular identification system for fish (MISF) using a profile hidden Markov model. MISF facilitates efficient and reliable species identification, overcoming the limitations of conventional taxonomic approa

The recent developments of new devices and advances in anesthesiology have greatly improved the utility and accuracy of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IOM). Herein, we review the basic principles of the electrophysiological methods employed under IOM in the operating room. These include motor evoked potentials, somatosensory evoked potentials, electroencephalography, electromyography, brainstem auditory evoked potentials, and visual evoked potentials. Most of these techniques have

This paper presents a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based method for the estimation of soil erosion and sediment yield from mine tailing dumps at abandoned mining areas. A region of 21.27 km2 in size around the Samgwang mine in Korea was selected as a study area. GIS data sets (i.e. a Digital Elevation Model (DEM), a soil map and a land cover map) and the mean annual rainfall over 30 years recorded from the nearest observatory were used to create factor layers for calculating the mean a

Coronoid process hyperplasia is a rare condition that causes mouth opening limitation, otherwise known as trismus. The elongated coronoid processes impinge on the medial surfaces of the zygomatic arches when opening the mouth, which limits movement of the mandible and leads to trismus. Patients with trismus due to coronoid process hyperplasia do not have any definite symptoms such as temporomandibular joint pain or sounds upon clinical examination, and no significant abnormal signs are observed

OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to evaluate the utility of aquaporin-4 antibodies (AQP4-Ab) in patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD). METHODS: The clinical and radiological characteristics of 78 patients with NMOSD and 22 with multiple sclerosis (MS), who were tested for AQP4-Ab by a cell-based assay, were assessed. RESULTS: The mean time interval between symptom onset and development of optic neuritis and myelitis was 39.9 months in neuromyelitis optica (NMO). About 40% of patien

Non-biting midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) are a diverse population that commonly causes respiratory allergies in humans. Chironomid larvae can be used to indicate freshwater pollution, but accurate identification on the basis of morphological characteristics is difficult. In this study, we constructed a mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI)-based DNA barcode library for Korean chironomids. This library consists of 211 specimens from 49 species, including adults and unidentified larv