First-in-class MKK4 inhibitors enhance liver regeneration and prevent liver failure.

Diminished hepatocyte regeneration is a key feature of acute and chronic liver diseases and after extended liver resections, resulting in the inability to maintain or restore a sufficient functional liver mass. Therapies to restore hepatocyte regeneration are lacking, making liver transplantation the only curative option for end-stage liver disease. Here, we report on the structure-based development and characterization (nuclear magnetic resonance [NMR] spectroscopy) of first-in-class small molecule inhibitors of the dual-specificity kinase MKK4 (MKK4i).

Clonality, local population structure and gametophyte sex ratios in cryptic species of the Sphagnum magellanicum complex.

Background And Aims: Sphagnum (peatmoss) comprises a moss (Bryophyta) clade with ~300-500 species. The genus has unparalleled ecological importance because Sphagnum-dominated peatlands store almost a third of the terrestrial carbon pool and peatmosses engineer the formation and microtopography of peatlands. Genomic resources for Sphagnum are being actively expanded, but many aspects of their biology are still poorly known.

Identifying modifiable factors associated with psychological health in women experiencing infertility.

This study assessed the relationship between modifiable psychological variables and depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic growth in women experiencing infertility. U.S.

Positive Psychological Intervention Effects on Depression: Positive Emotion Does Not Mediate Intervention Impact in a Sample with Elevated Depressive Symptoms.

Positive psychological interventions (PPIs), programs that specifically target positive emotions, cognitions, and behaviors, have been shown to reduce depression and improve other aspects of psychological well-being. However, potential pathways linking PPIs to better outcomes have been under-explored. In this paper, we report the results of a randomized trial of a self-guided online delivered PPI called MARIGOLD (Mobile Affect Regulation Intervention with the Goal of Lowering Depression).

Facilitator Contact, Discussion Boards, and Virtual Badges as Adherence Enhancements to a Web-Based, Self-guided, Positive Psychological Intervention for Depression: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Adherence to self-guided interventions tends to be very low, especially in people with depression. Prior studies have demonstrated that enhancements may increase adherence, but little is known about the efficacy of various enhancements in comparison to, or in combination with, one another.

Objective: The aim of our study is to test whether 3 enhancements-facilitator contact (FC), an online discussion board, and virtual badges (VB)-alone, or in combination, improve adherence to a self-guided, web-based intervention for depression.

Do interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive sensibility predict emotion regulation?

Introduction: Interoception refers to awareness, interpretation, and integration of sensations in the body. While interoceptive accuracy has long been regarded as a core component of emotional experience, less is known about the relationship of interoceptive accuracy and related facets of interoception to emotion regulation deficits. This study explores how interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive sensibility relate to emotion regulation in a non-clinical sample.

Conditioned contextual fear memory to assess natural forgetting and cognitive enhancement in rats.

Aversively established contextual fear memory manifests itself in robust freezing behavior, often lasting several weeks or months. Therefore, this approach is amenable to investigate the underlying neural circuitries by lesion or inactivation of specific brain regions or to test efficacy of substances that disrupt either the ability to acquire the association or to retrieve memories. In contrast, investigation of memory enhancement using this technique is time intensive since the non-treated control group naturally forgets the learned association only weeks after acquisition.

Positive affect and medication adherence in chronic conditions: A systematic review.

Objective: This review aims to inform research and clinical care on the current state of knowledge on the relationship between positive affect and medication adherence.

Method: Searches were carried out in PsycINFO, PubMed MEDLINE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), CINAHL, and Embase. There were no limits on study type, publication date, language, or participant demographics.

The MARIGOLD study: Feasibility and enhancement of an online intervention to improve emotion regulation in people with elevated depressive symptoms.

Background: This manuscript describes the first two phases of pilot testing MARIGOLD, an online self-guided positive emotion skills intervention for adults with elevated depressive symptoms, along with enhancements to overcome retention and adherence problems reported in previous research.

Methods: Adults with elevated depressive symptoms were recruited online and assessed at baseline, post-intervention, 1- and 3-month follow-up. Phase 1 participants (n = 58) were randomized to MARIGOLD, daily emotion reporting, or waitlist.

Gender Differences in HIV Testing, Diagnosis, and Linkage to Care in Healthcare Settings: Identifying African American Women with HIV in Chicago.

Women account for 25% of all people living with HIV and 19% of new diagnoses in the United States. African American (AA) women are disproportionately affected. Yet, differences in the care continuum entry are not well understood between patient populations and healthcare sites.

A Self-Paced, Web-Based, Positive Emotion Skills Intervention for Reducing Symptoms of Depression: Protocol for Development and Pilot Testing of MARIGOLD.

Background: Living with elevated symptoms of depression can have debilitating consequences for an individual's psychosocial and physical functioning, quality of life, and health care utilization. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that skills for increasing positive emotion can be helpful to individuals with depression. Although Web-based interventions to reduce negative emotion in individuals with depression are available, these interventions frequently suffer from poor retention and adherence and do not capitalize on the potential benefits of increasing positive emotion.

The hidden : How science Twitter uncovered a globally imperiled species in Pennsylvania, USA.

The genus is recognized as one of the most diverse endemic radiations of Saxifragaceae in North America, yet species delimitation and geographic distribution within the group remain controversial. Many species remain difficult to identify, including , a narrow Appalachian endemic and globally imperiled (G2) taxon recorded only from West Virginia and Virginia that occurs in sympatry with and . A recent survey of the cliffside flora of the Shikellamy Bluffs, PA recorded dozens of individuals that, through the use of social media, were positively identified as .

Pre-pregnancy Body Mass Index and Third-Trimester Depressive Symptoms in a Healthy Privately Insured Sample.

 While being overweight (body mass index [BMI] >25) prior to pregnancy is linked to antenatal depression, whether weight is confounded by socioeconomic and/or medical risks is unclear.  We assessed 66 healthy privately insured pregnant women at M = 35.0 ± 3.

Author Reply: Illuminating the Health Benefits of Psychological Assets.

This reply addresses observations of Drs. Larsen, Kruse & Sweeny, and Scherer in their reviews of our published work on the link between positive psychological assets and outcomes of physical health. Inspired by Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative we argue that the interplay between the emotion spectrum and health is likely a complex and heterogeneous amalgam of known and yet unidentified elements melding at the individual level.

Psychological Well-being and Physical Health: Associations, Mechanisms, and Future Directions.

A paradigm shift in public health and medicine has broadened the field from a singular focus on the ill effects of negative states and psychopathology to an expanded view that examines protective psychological assets that may promote improved physical health and longevity. We summarize recent evidence of the link between psychological well-being (including positive affect, optimism, life meaning and purpose, and life satisfaction) and physical health, with particular attention to outcomes of mortality and chronic disease incidence and progression. Within this evolving discipline there remain controversies and lessons to be learned.

A Scoping Review of Positive Lifestyle and Wellness Interventions to Inform the Development of a Comprehensive Health Promotion Program: "HealthPro".

. Lifestyle medicine has emerged as a transformational force in mainstream health care. Numerous health promotion and wellness programs have been created to facilitate the adoption of increased positive, modifiable health behaviors to prevent and lessen the effects of chronic disease.

Perspectives from Patients and Healthcare Providers on the Practice of Maternal Placentophagy.

Purpose: Placentophagy (maternal consumption of the placenta) has become increasingly prevalent in the past decade among women seeking to promote health and healing during the postpartum period. The purpose of this study was to assess patient and provider familiarity with and attitudes toward placentophagy, as well as patients' willingness to try placentophagy.

Methods: Two cross-sectional surveys with questions regarding placentophagy practice were distributed to healthcare providers and patients.

Factors Affecting Quality of Life at Different Intervals After Treatment of Localized Prostate Cancer: Unique Influence of Treatment Decision Making Satisfaction, Personality and Sexual Functioning.

Purpose: Using patient reported outcomes measures we identified the most informative set of factors associated with quality of life in a large sample of men treated for localized prostate cancer.

Materials And Methods: We examined relationships with quality of life using FACIT (Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy). We also hypothesized variables in a sample of men diagnosed with localized prostate cancer who represented different time points since treatment, including less than 12 months in 70, 1 to 3 years in 344, greater than 3 to 5 years in 291 and greater than 5 years in 97.

Acupuncture-Related Quality of Life Changes Using PROMIS Computer Adaptive Tests in a Pragmatic Trial with Oncology and General Integrative Medicine Patients: The Role of Baseline Acupuncture Expectations.

Introduction: Acupuncture has been shown to alleviate symptoms and increase general well-being in different medical patient samples. A major challenge in acupuncture clinical research is the availability of comparable and standardized patient-reported outcome measurement (PRO) tools.

Objectives: This study used a pragmatic design to examine longitudinal changes in quality of life (QOL) in a medical patient sample following acupuncture using PROs from the National Institutes of Health's Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) initiative.

Feasibility, acceptability and preliminary psychological benefits of mindfulness meditation training in a sample of men diagnosed with prostate cancer on active surveillance: results from a randomized controlled pilot trial.

Objective: In a pilot randomized controlled trial, examine the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of an 8-week, mindfulness training program (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) in a sample of men on active surveillance on important psychological outcomes including prostate cancer anxiety, uncertainty intolerance and posttraumatic growth.

Methods: Men were randomized to either mindfulness (n = 24) or an attention control arm (n = 19) and completed self-reported measures of prostate cancer anxiety, uncertainty intolerance, global quality of life, mindfulness and posttraumatic growth at baseline, 8 weeks, 6 months and 12 months.

Results: Participants in the mindfulness arm demonstrated significant decreases in prostate cancer anxiety and uncertainty intolerance, and significant increases in mindfulness, global mental health and posttraumatic growth.

Overexpression of Protein Kinase Mζ in the Hippocampus Enhances Long-Term Potentiation and Long-Term Contextual But Not Cued Fear Memory in Rats.

Unlabelled: The persistently active protein kinase Mζ (PKMζ) has been found to be involved in the formation and maintenance of long-term memory. Most of the studies investigating PKMζ, however, have used either putatively unselective inhibitors or conventional knock-out animal models in which compensatory mechanisms may occur. Here, we overexpressed an active form of PKMζ in rat hippocampus, a structure highly involved in memory formation, and embedded in several neural networks.

Interaction of oxytocin level and past depression may predict postpartum depressive symptom severity.

We examined plasma oxytocin concentration and postpartum depression (PPD) symptom severity in women who were not depressed during pregnancy and whether this differed by major depressive disorder (MDD) history. We assessed psychiatric history and plasma oxytocin in 66 healthy pregnant women in the third trimester (M = 35 ± 3 weeks) and depressive symptoms at 6 weeks postpartum (M = 5.9 ± 0.

PLASMA OXYTOCIN CONCENTRATION AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS: A REVIEW OF CURRENT EVIDENCE AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH.

There is substantial recent interest in the role of oxytocin in social and affiliative behaviors-animal models of depression have suggested a link between oxytocin and mood. We reviewed literature to date for evidence of a potential relationship between peripheral oxytocin concentration and depressive symptoms in humans. Pubmed(®) and PsychINFO(®) were searched for biomedical and social sciences literature from 1960 to May 19, 2015 for empirical articles in English involving human subjects focused on the relationship between peripheral oxytocin concentration and depressive symptoms, excluding articles on the oxytocin receptor gene, or involving exogenous (i.