This study is conducted to understand relationship between social, intracerebral, visceral environments and willpower, and the mechanism through which the balance of the whole-person loop of the society-brain-internal environment correlation is destroyed.
It involves epidemiology, physical and pathological study of maintenance, and failure in visceral and intracerebral homeostasis, correlation of social, visceral, and intracerebral environments, regulation of epigenetic gene expression, and construction of an evaluation system for the environment sensitivity of willpower in primates, etc.
In particular, our research group will focus on feeding behavior, intestinal microbiota, brain-gut hormones, autoantibodies, bone marrow derived cells and hypothalamic neuropeptides including time axis.
Furthermore, the study identifies multiple new treatment and prevention target factors, which are to form a promising basis for the regeneration and development of the next generation, and proposes a strategy for innovative treatment and whole-person prevention vis-à-vis the target factors.

Youths under the condition of “hikikomori” and “modern-type depression” have been increasing in Japan, and this phenomenon is becoming a crucial social issue especially in schools and workplaces. Although pathophisiology of these syndromes has not been well clarified, we hypothesize that dysfunction of “motivation” via maladaptive neuron-glia communication during the developmental period is one of the possible causes of such syndromes. We herein clarify our hypothesis as a translational research with analysis of rodent models and also clinical data collections.