National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities 2 articles published in JoVE Biology Application of Passive Head Motion to Generate Defined Accelerations at the Heads of Rodents Takahiro Maekawa*1, Naoyoshi Sakitani*1, Youngjae Ryu1, Atsushi Takashima2, Shuhei Murase1, Julius Fink3, Motoshi Nagao1, Toru Ogata4, Masahiro Shinohara1, Yasuhiro Sawada5 1Department of Rehabilitation for Motor Functions, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, 2Department of Assistive Technology, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, 3Department of Metabolism and Endocrinology, Graduate School of Medicine, Juntendo University, 4Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 5Department of Clinical Research, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities The present protocol describes a custom-designed ''passive head motion'' system, which reproduces mechanical accelerations at rodents' heads generated during their treadmill running at moderate velocities. It allows dissecting mechanical factors/elements from the beneficial effects of physical exercise. Immunology and Infection Application of Consistent Massage-Like Perturbations on Mouse Calves and Monitoring the Resulting Intramuscular Pressure Changes Naoyoshi Sakitani*1, Takahiro Maekawa*1, Kumiko Saitou1,2, Katsuhiko Suzuki3, Shuhei Murase1,4, Masakuni Tokunaga1, Daisuke Yoshino5, Keisuke Sawada6, Atsushi Takashima7, Motoshi Nagao1, Toru Ogata1, Yasuhiro Sawada1,8 1Department of Rehabilitation for Motor Functions, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, 2Graduate School of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, 3Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, 4Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 5Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University, 6University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 7Department of Assistive Technology, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, 8Department of Clinical Research, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities Here we describe the protocols for applying defined mechanical loads to mouse calves and for monitoring the concomitant intramuscular pressure changes. The experimental systems that we have developed can be useful for investigating the mechanism behind the beneficial effects of physical exercise and massage.
