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Viral and bacterial infections may produce abnormalities in carbohydrate metabolism in normal subjects and profound changes in glucose homeostasis in insulin-dependent diabetics. Using an RIA with [125]porcine insulin, the effect of rat interferon (IFN) on the production/secretion of immunoreactive insulin (IRI) in cultured cells was investigated. We found that, after incubation of rat insulinoma cells with rat IFN, a decrease in the production of IRI was observed. The decrease correlated with the concentration of IFN and the length of the incubation. IFN also caused a decrease in the production/secretion of IRI from rat pancreatic beta-cells in primary culture. This IFN has all of the properties of IFN including species specificity, and the insulin inhibitory effect cannot be dissociated from the antiviral activity of IFN. These data suggest that one possible explanation for abnormalities in glucose metabolism associated with viral or bacterial infections is that virus-or bacteria-induced production of IFN may alter the concentration of insulin.

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Purpose: This study was conducted to assess the involvement of mora segmentation skills in the auditory comprehension process of aphasic patients. Methods: Several tests, such as an auditory word comprehension test, a mora segmentation test (using meaningful and meaningless words), speech discrimination test, and verbal short-term memory test, were conducted in 28 patients with aphasia, owing to left hemisphere brain damage, who had agreed to participate in the study. Results: There was no signifi cant relationship between mora segmentation skills for meaningful words and auditory comprehension (F = 0.72, p = 0.407). When mora types were analyzed separately for comparative purposes, a signifi cant relationship between auditory comprehension and mora segmentation skills for meaningful words, including only a single-kana sound, was observed (F = 7.50, p < 0.05). However, such a relationship was not observed with words that include the sound of kana "n." There was no signifi cant difference between meaningful words and meaningless words in terms of the relationship between mora segmentation skills and auditory comprehension (total correct answers for meaningless words: F = 0.03, p = 0.857; meaningless words containing only single-kana sounds: F = 4.40, p < 0.05). Conclusions:The results suggest that phoneme segmentation assists phonological perception during the process of auditory word comprehension. Furthermore, it is conceivable that the segmentation unit involved in this process is a syllable, rather than a mora; however, this possibility requires further study.

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