Brief Video-Delivered Intervention to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Functioning in Older Veterans: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Older veterans with anxiety disorders encounter multiple barriers to receiving mental health services, including transportation difficulties, physical limitations, and limited access to providers trained to work with older persons. To address both accessibility and the shortage of available providers, evidence-based treatments that can be delivered via guided self-management modalities are a potential solution.

Objective: This study aims to determine the feasibility and acceptability of a randomized controlled trial of 2 guided self-management interventions.

Pilot Study of High-Dose Pemetrexed in Patients with Progressive Chordoma.

Purpose: Chordomas are ultrarare tumors of the axial spine and skull-base without approved systemic therapy. Most chordomas have negative expression of thymidylate synthase (TS), suggesting a potential for responding to the antifolate agent pemetrexed, which inhibits TS and other enzymes involved in nucleotide biosynthesis. We evaluated the therapeutic activity and safety of high-dose pemetrexed in progressive chordoma.

Sleep architecture is associated with core symptom severity in autism spectrum disorder.

Study Objectives: While caregiver-reported sleep disturbances are common in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (['), few studies have measured objective sleep in ASD compared to controls, and their findings are mixed. We investigated (1) differences in sleep architecture, specifically slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, between ASD and typically developing controls (TD); and (2) if any observed differences in sleep were associated with core ASD symptoms.

Methods: We used ambulatory polysomnography (PSG) in 53 participants with ASD (ages 4-18) and 66 age-matched TD in their home sleeping environment.

Preparing the Next Generation of Academic Researchers During the Pandemic: Lessons from a National Mental Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted all aspects of academic medicine, including post-doctoral research fellowship training. The current survey examined ways in which research fellows across 28 U.S.

Increased activation product of complement 4 protein in plasma of individuals with schizophrenia.

Structural variation in the complement 4 gene (C4) confers genetic risk for schizophrenia. The variation includes numbers of the increased C4A copy number, which predicts increased C4A mRNA expression. C4-anaphylatoxin (C4-ana) is a C4 protein fragment released upon C4 protein activation that has the potential to change the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

A school-based health and mindfulness curriculum improves children's objectively measured sleep: a prospective observational cohort study.

Study Objectives: Poor sleep impedes children's cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial development. Pediatric sleep dysregulation is common, and children who live in communities of low socioeconomic status experience additional risk factors for short sleep duration and poor sleep quality. School-based training in mindfulness and yoga-informed practices can improve children's behavior and well-being, but effects on objectively measured sleep are unknown.

The 5-HTTLPR long allele predicts two-year longitudinal increases in cortisol and declines in verbal memory in older adults.

Objectives: The short form or s-allele variant of the serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR), as compared with the long-form or l-allele variant, has been associated with the presence of cognitive dysfunction, and particularly memory impairment in older adults. This body of cross-sectional work has culminated in the hypothesis that presence of the s-allele predicts greater memory decline in older adults. Yet, to date, there are no longitudinal studies that have investigated this issue.

Experiences of participation in supervised group exercise among pregnant women with depression or low psychological well-being: A qualitative descriptive study.

Objective: To explore experiences with supervised group exercise during pregnancy in women with depression or low psychological well-being.

Design: A qualitative descriptive study based on semi-structured, individual, in-depth interviews analyzed by means of thematic analysis.

Setting: The Department of Obstetrics, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark.

Factors Associated with Supportive Care Service Use Among California Alzheimer's Disease Patients and Their Caregivers.

Background: Existing literature on factors associated with supportive care service (SCS) use is limited. A better understanding of these factors could help tailor SCS to the needs of frequent users, as well as facilitate targeted outreach to populations that underutilize available services.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of SCS use and to identify factors associated with, and barriers to, service use.

RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIAL OF AN INTERNET-BASED INTERVENTION TO PREVENT ADOLESCENT DEPRESSION IN A PRIMARY CARE SETTING (CATCH-IT): 2.5-YEAR OUTCOMES.

We developed and tested two primary care based approaches for the early identification and prevention of depressive disorders in adolescents. We conducted a randomized controlled trial originally intended to compare Brief Advice (BA) + Internet intervention with Motivational Interviewing (MI) + Internet intervention in primary care for adolescents experiencing persistent subthreshold depression (Project CATCH-IT). This is an exploratory long-term 2.

"Why Should I Tell My Business?": An Emerging Theory of Coping and Disclosure in Teens.

Disclosing predepression feelings of sadness is difficult for teens. Primary care providers are a potential avenue for teens to disclose these feelings and a bridge to mental health care before becoming more seriously ill. To explore how to more effectively recruit teens into a primary care-based, online depression prevention study, we held 5 focus groups with African American and Latino teens (n = 43) from a large Midwestern city.

Impact of 5-HTTLPR on hippocampal subregional activation in older adults.

Studies have shown that a functional polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) impacts performance on memory-related tasks and the hippocampal structures that subserve these tasks. The short (s) allele of 5-HTTLPR has been linked to greater susceptibility for impaired memory and smaller hippocampal volume compared to the long allele (l). However, previous studies have not examined the associations between 5-HTTLPR allele and activation in subregions of the hippocampus.

The impact of executive function on response to cognitive behavioral therapy in late-life depression.

Objective: Late-life depression (LLD) is a common and debilitating condition among older adults. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has strong empirical support for the treatment of depression in all ages, including in LLD. In teaching patients to identify, monitor, and challenge negative patterns in their thinking, CBT for LLD relies heavily on cognitive processes and, in particular, executive functioning, such as planning, sequencing, organizing, and selectively inhibiting information.

Probing backbone hydrogen bonding in PDZ/ligand interactions by protein amide-to-ester mutations.

PDZ domains are scaffolding modules in protein-protein interactions that mediate numerous physiological functions by interacting canonically with the C-terminus or non-canonically with an internal motif of protein ligands. A conserved carboxylate-binding site in the PDZ domain facilitates binding via backbone hydrogen bonds; however, little is known about the role of these hydrogen bonds due to experimental challenges with backbone mutations. Here we address this interaction by generating semisynthetic PDZ domains containing backbone amide-to-ester mutations and evaluating the importance of individual hydrogen bonds for ligand binding.

Stimulus-response characteristics of motor evoked potentials and silent periods in proximal and distal upper-extremity muscles.

Objective: To compare stimulus-response characteristics of both motor evoked potentials (MEP) and silent periods (SP) induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in proximal and distal upper-extremity muscles.

Methods: Stimulus-response curves of MEPs and SPs were obtained from the biceps brachii (BB) and abductor digiti minimi (ADM) muscles in 15 healthy participants. A nonlinear mixed model was used to fit the stimulus-response curves to a sigmoid Boltzmann function.

The relation between postural stability and weight distribution in healthy subjects.

Knowledge of the effects of leg-loading asymmetry on postural control and control asymmetry during quiet upright standing in healthy young and middle-aged subjects is necessary before these relationships in patients with lateralized disorders can be assessed and understood. A posturographic procedure was developed, using a dual-plate force platform, during which 10 younger and 10 middle-aged healthy individuals were required to adopt various degrees of (a) symmetrical weight distributions (0, 5, 10, 20 and 30% of extra body weight loaded onto either leg). Postural control and control asymmetry were quantified by centre of pressure (CP) fluctuations in the lateral (LAT) and anterior-posterior (AP) directions under both feet together and individually.

Reversible left hemispheric ischemia secondary to carotid compression in Eagle syndrome: surgical and CT angiographic correlation.

Symptoms of ipsilateral carotid artery compression secondary to an elongated styloid process or calcified stylohyoid ligament may be seen in Eagle syndrome. The patient will typically experience cervicofacial pain due to stimulation of the arterial nervous plexus. In addition, symptoms directly attributable to compression of the carotid artery may be seen, including visual symptoms and syncope.

Identification of EGFRvIII-derived CTL epitopes restricted by HLA A0201 for dendritic cell based immunotherapy of gliomas.

The type III variant of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFRvIII) mutation is present in 20-25% of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). EGFRvIII is not expressed in normal tissue and is therefore a suitable candidate antigen for dendritic cell (DC) based immunotherapy of GBM. To identify the antigenic epitope(s) that may serve as targets for EGFRvIII-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), the peptide sequence of EGFRvIII was screened with two software programs to predict candidate epitopes restricted by the major histocompatibility complex class I subtype HLA-A0201, which is the predominant subtype in most ethnic groups.

CT angiography of intracranial aneurysms: a focus on postprocessing.

Computed tomographic (CT) angiography is a well-known tool for detection of intracranial aneurysms and the planning of therapeutic intervention. Despite a wealth of existing studies and an increase in image quality due to use of multisection CT and increasingly sophisticated postprocessing tools such as direct volume rendering, CT angiography has still not replaced digital subtraction angiography as the standard of reference for detection of intracranial aneurysms. One reason may be that CT angiography is still not a uniformly standardized method, particularly with regard to image postprocessing.

Systematic determination of telomerase activity and telomerase length during the progression of human breast cancer in cell culture models.

The purpose of the study was to determine systematically the expression of telomerase activity and the length of telomere repeat arrays by utilizing two different cell culture models that derive from normal individual donors, and probably represent various stages of human breast oncogenesis in cell culture. The models consist of mortal, non-tumorigenic immortal and tumorigenic immortal human mammary epithelial cell (MEC) lines. Using a recently developed polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay, telomerase activity was undetectable in mortal MEC cells.

Enhancement of radiosensitivity in human malignant glioma cells by hypericin in vitro.

Hypericin, an antidepressant and antiviral agent being evaluated in phase I and II trials for patients with HIV infection, is known to be a potent protein kinase C inhibitor. We have investigated its effects on cellular response to radiation via a tetrazolium-formazan cell growth rate assay using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide and clonogenic assay in three human glioblastoma cell lines, U87-MG, A-172, and T98G, and a low-passage malignant glioma culture, 93-492. At a concentration of 5 microM, hypericin inhibited these cells slightly but caused significant radiosensitization (e.

Lovastatin induces growth inhibition and apoptosis in human malignant glioma cells.

The competitive HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor lovastatin has been shown to suppress growth and induce morphological changes in a variety of non-glioma tumor cell lines. This study assesses the effects of this agent on the growth and survival of the human malignant glioma cell lines A172 and U87-MG. The response to the drug was investigated using a cell proliferation assay which revealed significant dose-dependent growth inhibition.

p53 protein accumulation and gene mutations in human glioma cell lines.

Mutations in, and aberrant expression of, the p53 tumor suppressor gene were assessed in 17 cell lines derived from human malignant brain tumors (glioblastoma multiforme). Exons 5 through 8 were screened by single strand conformational polymorphism analysis (SSCP), followed by direct DNA sequencing. Mutations were found in 6 of 17 glioma cell lines, i.

Filling the gaps. Systems offer two models of care management: community outreach and inpatient care.

The growing number of vulnerable people, such as the elderly and people with long-term disabilities, calls for healthcare providers to offer more programs to ensure a continuum of care. Client-focused care management programs offer access to such a continuum. Care managers understand services and reimbursement and can pull it all together for the client.