To compare physical and cognitive development of babies born after round spermatid injection (ROSI) with those born after natural conception. Comparison of efficiencies of ROSI and ICSI using testicular spermatozoa, performed in the St. Mother Clinic. Physical and cognitive development of ROSI babies recorded by parents in the government-issued Mother-Child Handbook was checked and verified by attending pediatricians. Data included baby's weight gain and response to parents' voice/gesture. Assisted reproduction technology practice. A total of 721 men participated in ROSI; 90 ROSI babies were followed for 2 years for their physical and cognitive development. Control subjects were 1,818 naturally born babies. Surgical retrieval of spermatogenic cells from testes; selection and injection of round spermatids into oocytes; oocyte activation, in vitro culture of fertilized eggs, and embryo transfer to mothers. Physical and cognitive development of ROSI babies (e.g., body weight increase, response to parents, and understanding and speaking simple language) compared with naturally born babies. Of 90 ROSI babies, three had congenital aberrations at birth, which corrected spontaneously (ventricular septa) or after surgery (cleft lip and omphalocele). Physical and cognitive development of ROSI babies was similar to those of naturally born babies. There were no significant differences between ROSI and naturally conceived babies in either physical or cognitive development during the first 2 years after birth. UMIN Clinical Trials Registry UMIN000006117.

There are limited studies on the long-term effects of natural/environmental disasters, especially nuclear disasters, on obstetric outcomes. This study aimed to review the results of perinatal outcomes immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, as well as their long-term trends over 8 years, in the Fukushima Health Management Survey. The annual population-based Pregnancy and Birth Survey is conducted as part of the Fukushima Health Management Survey. The Fukushima Prefecture government launched it to assess the health conditions of pregnant women and their neonates after the GEJE. The self-reported questionnaire was sent to 115,976 pregnant women by mail from January 2012, with 58,344 women responding to the questionnaire (50.3% response rate). Pregnancy complications, such as gestational hypertension, respiratory diseases, and mental disorders, increased in some women who were pregnant at the time of the earthquake and immediately after the earthquake. However, the direct effects on newborns, such as preterm birth, low birth weight, and congenital anomalies, were not immediately clear after the earthquake. Although there were significant differences in the occurrence of preterm birth and low birth weight among the districts, there was no change in the occurrences of preterm birth, low birth weight, or anomalies in newborns in Fukushima Prefecture from the fiscal year 2011 to the fiscal year 2018. Therefore, the long-term effects of the post-disaster radiation accident on perinatal outcomes are considered to be very small.

Determining standard pubertal growth patterns using longitudinal anthropometric measures is important in growth assessment. We used an appropriate repeated-measurements method to identify height growth patterns in Japanese school-aged girls and boys. The participants were children born during the period from 1991 through 1999 who had entered the first grade of elementary school in the Enzan district in Koshu City, Japan. This study was part of the Project Koshu cohort study. Height was measured annually in April from the first grade of elementary school (age, 6–7 years) to the third grade of junior middle school (age, 14–15 years). Height gain and growth rate trajectories in boys and girls were constructed using multilevel analysis. In total, 1984 children (1036 boys and 948 girls) were included in this study. Height in boys and girls was similar at age 6.5 to 9.5 years. Girls subsequently grew faster and were taller than boys at age 10.5 to 11.5 years. Starting at age 12.5 years, male height caught up and exceeded female height. Height gain trajectories showed that annual height gain among girls increased slowly and peaked during age 9.5 to 11.5 years, while male height gains declined slightly at first and peaked at age 11.5 to 12.5 years. Sex differences in height gains were significant during the period from age 7.5 to 14.5 years (P < 0.0001). Growth rate and height gain trajectories were similar between sexes. Sex differences in growth trajectory were significant, and female height gain peaked approximately 2 years earlier than male height gain.

Reconciliation is an integral part of our social lives. Nevertheless, if a victim perceives the risk of further exploitation by his/her transgressor as non-negligible, the victim may well have difficulty forgiving the transgressor. Therefore, a key ingredient of reconciliation is the transgressor's sincere apology. Theoretical and empirical studies have shown that transgressors can make their apologies credible by incurring a substantial cost. Therefore, we hypothesized that costly apologies, compared to non-costly apologies (i.e., simply saying “sorry”), would effectively communicate a transgressor's conciliatory intention. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, participants were asked to imagine a friend committing a mild interpersonal transgression (e.g., standing up the participant) and then apologizing in a costly fashion, apologizing in a non-costly fashion, or not apologizing at all. Compared to non-costly apologies and non-apologies, costly apologies (signals of conciliatory intention) more strongly activated the theory-of-mind network (i.e., bilateral temporoparietal junction, precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex). Moreover, we did not observe any significant differences in brain responses to non-costly apologies and non-apology controls. These results underscore the importance of costly signals in human communication and in human peace-making in particular.