About the Authors

Takuya Okata

Affiliation Department of Cerebrovascular Medicine, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan

Kazunori Toyoda

toyoda@ncvc.go.jp

Affiliation Department of Cerebrovascular Medicine, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan

Akira Okamoto

Affiliation Department of Clinical Chemistory, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan

Toshiyuki Miyata

Affiliation Department of Molecular Pathogenesis, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan

Kazuyuki Nagatsuka

Affiliation Department of Neurology, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan

Kazuo Minematsu

Affiliation Department of Cerebrovascular Medicine, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan

Competing Interests

KT, TM, KN, and KM report speakers’ honoraria from Bayer. Kazunori Toyoda and Toshiyuki Miyata are PLOS ONE Editorial Board members. This, in addition to the previously declared competing interests, does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE Editorial policies and criteria.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: TO. Performed the experiments: TO. Analyzed the data: TO. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TO AO TM. Wrote the paper: TO KT. Provided study supervision: KN KM.