Burnout and Compassion Satisfaction: Survey Findings of Healthcare Employee Wellness During COVID-19 Pandemic using ProQOL.

Introduction: Healthcare systems are being bombarded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding burnout, compassion fatigue, and potential protective factors, such as compassion satisfaction, will be important in supporting the vital healthcare workforce. The goal of the current study was to understand the key factors of burnout, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction among healthcare employees during the pandemic within the U.

Effects of prepulse format and lead interval on the assessment of automatic and attention-modulated prepulse inhibition.

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response can index automatic and attention-modulated aspects of sensorimotor gating. Automatic sensorimotor gating is typically assessed by a no-task PPI protocol in which participants are presented with discrete white noise prepulse and startle stimuli over continuous background broadband noise at brief short-lead intervals (e.g.

Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Go/NoGo Performance Using Food and Non-Food Stimuli in Patients with Prader-Willi Syndrome.

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder characterized by multiple system involvement with hypotonia, poor suck with feeding difficulties, growth and other hormone deficiencies, intellectual disability, and behavioral problems with childhood onset of hyperphagia resulting in obesity, if not externally controlled. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been increasingly shown to modulate cognitive and behavioral processes in children and adults, including food-intake behaviors in patients with PWS. This study further reports the positive effects of brief tDCS sessions on Go/NoGo task performance involving food and non-food stimuli images, alterations in N2 brain amplitude, and genetic subgroup differences (maternal disomy 15, UPD; 15q11-q13 deletion, DEL) before and after tDCS as assessed by event-related potentials (ERPs) in 10 adults with PWS.

STARTLE RESPONSE ANALYSIS OF FOOD-IMAGE PROCESSING IN PRADER-WILLI SYNDROME.

Background: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex genetic neurodevelopmental disorder with endocrine disturbances, hyperphagia and often life-threatening obesity as key features. We investigated emotional-processing of food and eating behavior in PWS using startle response-modulation. Startle eyeblink response is an involuntary reflex activated by the autonomic nervous system in response to sudden or disturbing auditory/visual stimuli which may be modulated by the emotional valence of concurrently viewed visual stimuli.

The effects of multiphasic prepulses on automatic and attention-modulated prepulse inhibition.

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) is widely viewed as an operational measure of sensorimotor gating. Previous research has shown that sensorimotor gating can occur automatically and also can be influenced by selective attention. The present research investigated the relationship of the transient detection response (TDR) with automatic and attention-modulated PPI using a novel "multiphasic" prepulse stimulus.

Multiplex Immunoassay of Plasma Cytokine Levels in Men with Alcoholism and the Relationship to Psychiatric Assessments.

Chronic alcohol use alters adaptive immunity and cytokine activity influencing immunological and hormone responses, inflammation, and wound healing. Brain cytokine disturbances may impact neurological function, mood, cognition and traits related to alcoholism including impulsiveness. We examined the relationship between plasma cytokine levels and self-rated psychiatric symptoms in 40 adult males (mean age 51 ± 6 years; range 33-58 years) with current alcohol dependence and 30 control males (mean age 48 ± 6 years; range 40-58 years) with no history of alcoholism using multiplex sandwich immunoassays with the Luminex magnetic-bead based platform.

Transcranial direct current stimulation reduces food-craving and measures of hyperphagia behavior in participants with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder characterized by intellectual disabilities and insatiable appetite with compulsive eating leading to severe obesity with detrimental health consequences. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to modulate decision-making and cue-induced food craving in healthy adults. We conducted a pilot double blind, sham-controlled, multicenter study of tDCS modulation of food drive and craving in 10 adult PWS participants, 11 adult obese (OB) and 11 adult healthy-weight control (HWC) subjects.

Change in psychiatric symptomatology after benfotiamine treatment in males is related to lifetime alcoholism severity.

Background: Severe alcoholism can be associated with significant nutritional and vitamin deficiency, especially vitamin B1 (thiamine) which is associated with neurological deficits impacting mood and cognition. Alcohol consumption was reduced among female but not male alcoholics after supplementation with the high potency thiamine analog benfotiamine (BF). We examined the relationship between lifetime alcoholism severity, psychiatric symptoms and response to BF among the alcohol dependent men from this cohort.

A preliminary case study of androgen receptor gene polymorphism association with impulsivity in women with alcoholism.

Objective: The () gene, located on the X chromosome, contains a common polymorphism involving cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) repeats, which impacts disease and could contribute to the unequal sex ratio in alcoholism. CAG repeats in the gene are known to correlate with impulsivity in males. We report the first preliminary study examining the association between the number of CAG repeats and measures of impulsivity in females with chronic alcoholism.

Double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial of benfotiamine for severe alcohol dependence.

Alcohol dependence is associated with severe nutritional and vitamin deficiency. Vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency erodes neurological pathways that may influence the ability to drink in moderation. The present study examines tolerability of supplementation using the high-potency thiamine analog, benfotiamine (BF), and BF's effects on alcohol consumption in severely affected, self-identified, alcohol dependent subjects.

X chromosome inactivation in women with alcoholism.

Background: All female mammals with 2 X chromosomes balance gene expression with males having only 1 X by inactivating one of their X chromosomes (X chromosome inactivation [XCI]). Analysis of XCI in females offers the opportunity to investigate both X-linked genetic factors and early embryonic development that may contribute to alcoholism. Increases in the prevalence of skewing of XCI in women with alcoholism could implicate biological risk factors.

Selective and nonselective attention effects on prepulse inhibition of startle: a comparison of task and no-task protocols.

The effects of selective and nonselective attentional processes on prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response were examined by assessing PPI under intermixed task and no-task conditions. Results for the task condition revealed that greater PPI was produced by an attended than an ignored prepulse at a lead interval of 120 ms (marginally significant in the early trial block and significant in the late trial block), indicating an effect of selective attention at this lead interval. Comparisons between the task and no-task conditions revealed significantly greater PPI in the task than no-task condition at a 60-ms lead interval, during early and late trial blocks, indicating a nonselective attention effect at this lead interval.