ABSTRACT
During mid-life, women experienced not only physical but also neurological transition. Because of this, many women suffer from physiological and/or psychological menopausal symptoms. Although hormone therapy (HT) was broadly used to alleviate menopausal symptoms, HT showed inconsistent effects in case of psychological symptoms. Moreover, mid-life women’s brains have distinct characteristics than in other periods of life, it is needed to study psychological symptoms in shifted brain network of mid-life women. As an alternative, inhalation of fragrances may alleviate psychological menopausal symptoms. To characterize the alleviation mechanism by fragrances, we tested the effect of fragrances on menopausal symptoms using electroencephalographic (EEG) methods. We hypothesized that fragrance could restore mid-life women’s brain response to stressful situations. We tested six fragrance conditions, including no-odor condition (solvent only) in twenty-eight mid-life women (49.75 years±3.49).Our results showed that fragrances increased alpha power and decreased β/α ratio depending on the severity of menopausal symptoms in a stressful situation. Our study would be helpful in psychological menopausal symptom alleviation as well as fragrance screening for well-being in mid-life.
ABSTRACT
Nodular fasciitis is a benign reactive myofibroblastic proliferative lesion of unknown etiology. It is classically presented as a freely mobile, solitary, rapidly growing superficial nodule. It can mimic an early mesenchymal malignancy dut to its rapid growth rate and histologic appearances such as high cellularity and mitotic activity. Nodular fasciitis of the auricular region is uncommon. Here, we describe, along with a literature review, the cases of two patients with nodular fasciitis as a tragal and infrauricular mass.