Using Client Narratives to Identify Predictors of Outcome in Written Exposure Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy.

Written exposure therapy (WET) is a brief, five-session treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that aims to improve access to care. WET has been demonstrated to be an efficacious PTSD treatment with lower rates of dropout and noninferior PTSD symptom outcome compared to cognitive processing therapy (CPT), a 12-session, gold-standard treatment. To identify predictors of treatment outcome in both WET and CPT, the current study examined the content of participants' written narratives.

In Their Own Words: Women Veterans Identify the Personal Consequences of Military Sexual Trauma Victimization.

This qualitative study provides a platform for women veterans to inform our perspective of their experienced impacts following military sexual trauma (MST). We engaged 23 women veterans in semistructured interviews and used a grounded theory-informed thematic analytic approach, to interpret women's experiences. Women described negative impacts of their MST experiences across psychological, behavioral, and occupational domains.

Molecular Regulation of Concomitant Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms and Erectile Dysfunction in Pelvic Ischemia.

Aging correlates with greater incidence of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and erectile dysfunction (ED) in the male population where the pathophysiological link remains elusive. The incidence of LUTS and ED correlates with the prevalence of vascular risk factors, implying potential role of arterial disorders in concomitant development of the two conditions. Human studies have revealed lower bladder and prostate blood flow in patients with LUTS suggesting that the severity of LUTS and ED correlates with the severity of vascular disorders.

Study protocol for a revised randomized trial: Remotely delivered Tai Chi and wellness for Gulf War illness.

Background: Many of the 700,000 American military personnel deployed to the Persian Gulf region in 1990 and 1991 have since reported health symptoms of unknown etiology. This cluster of symptoms has been labeled Gulf War Illness and include chronic musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, headaches, memory and attention difficulties, gastrointestinal complaints, skin abnormalities, breathing problems, and mood and sleep problems [1,2]. There have been few high-quality intervention trials and no strong evidence to support available treatments [3].

Formation of Double Stranded RNA Provokes Smooth Muscle Contractions and Structural Modifications in Bladder Ischemia.

Purpose: Growing evidence suggests that ischemia provokes detrusor overactivity and degenerative responses in the bladder. Underlying mechanisms appear to involve modification of smooth muscle contractile rudiments by hypoxia, redox, cellular stress and cell survival signaling. Downstream pathways of cellular stress and stress response molecules eliciting bladder dysfunction in ischemia remain largely elusive.

Family-Involved Mental Health Care Among OEF/OIF Veterans With and Without PTSD Using VHA Administrative Records.

Prior research indicates that veterans are interested in including family members in health care and that family-inclusive mental health treatment can improve treatment outcomes. Consequently, the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) directive requires providers to offer family-inclusive mental health services to veterans. However, the extent to which veterans engage in family-inclusive mental health services at the VHA remains unclear.

Proceedings of the Clinical Microbiology Open 2018 and 2019 - a Discussion about Emerging Trends, Challenges, and the Future of Clinical Microbiology.

Clinical Microbiology Open (CMO), a meeting supported by the American Society for Microbiology's Clinical and Public Health Microbiology Committee (CPHMC) and Corporate Council, provides a unique interactive platform for leaders from diagnostic microbiology laboratories, industry, and federal agencies to discuss the current and future state of the clinical microbiology laboratory. The purpose is to leverage the group's diverse views and expertise to address critical challenges, and discuss potential collaborative opportunities for diagnostic microbiology, through the utilization of varied resources. The first and second CMO meetings were held in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in US Military Veterans: Results From the 2019-2020 National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study.

The US military veteran population is changing rapidly, and contemporary data on the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are lacking. The clarified PTSD Criterion A to delineate direct and indirect trauma exposures, but effects on the conditional probability of PTSD and functional impairment remain unknown. The objectives of this study were to provide contemporary estimates of PTSD prevalence and conditional probabilities in the US military veteran population, determine the likelihood of developing PTSD following direct versus indirect exposures to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), and examine the effects of direct and indirect PTEs and PTSD on functional impairment.

Cellular Stress and Molecular Responses in Bladder Ischemia.

The concept of bladder ischemia as a contributing factor to detrusor overactivity and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) is evolving. Bladder ischemia as a consequence of pelvic arterial atherosclerosis was first documented in experimental models and later in elderly patients with LUTS. It was shown that early-stage moderate ischemia produces detrusor overactivity, while prolonged severe ischemia provokes changes consistent with detrusor underactivity.

Prevalence of Fibromyalgia Syndrome in Active-Duty Military Personnel.

Objective: Previous research with civilian populations has found strong associations between fibromyalgia (FM) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We undertook this study to investigate the prevalence of FM in military service members with and without PTSD.

Methods: Participants were active duty military personnel recruited into either an epidemiologic cohort study of service members before a military deployment or 1 of 3 PTSD treatment trials.

Phosphaturic Mesenchymal Tumors of the Sinonasal Area and Skull Base: Experience at a Single Institution.

Objectives: Phosphaturic mesenchymal tumor (PMT) is a rare, polymorphous neoplasm with a highly variable presentation and natural history and unpredictable clinical course. The primary objective was to describe our clinical experience with and management of 4 markedly different cases of sinonasal and skull base PMT.

Methods: A retrospective case series with chart review, and relevant literature review, was performed at a tertiary academic medical center between 1998 and 2020.

Post-Translational Modification Networks of Contractile and Cellular Stress Response Proteins in Bladder Ischemia.

Molecular mechanisms underlying bladder dysfunction in ischemia, particularly at the protein and protein modification levels and downstream pathways, remain largely unknown. Here we describe a comparison of protein sequence variations in the ischemic and normal bladder tissues by measuring the mass differences of the coding amino acids and actual residues crossing the proteome. A large number of nonzero delta masses (11,056) were detected, spanning over 1295 protein residues.

Parameters of Aggressive Behavior in a Treatment-Seeking Sample of Military Personnel: A Secondary Analysis of Three Randomized Controlled Trials of Evidence-Based PTSD Treatments.

Aggressive behavior is prevalent among veterans of post-9/11 conflicts who have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, little is known about whether PTSD treatments reduce aggression or the direction of the association between changes in PTSD symptoms and aggression in the context of PTSD treatment. We combined data from three clinical trials of evidence-based PTSD treatment in service members (N = 592) to: (1) examine whether PTSD treatment reduces psychological (e.

The language of mental images: Characterizing hippocampal contributions to imageable word use during event construction.

Accumulating evidence suggests that the hippocampus plays a critical role in the creative and flexible use of language at the sentence or discourse level. Yet it is currently unclear whether the hippocampus also supports language use at the level of single words. A recent study by Hilverman et al.

Regulation of Cellular Stress Signaling in Bladder Ischemia.

Introduction: The etiology of lower urinary tract symptoms in patients with non-obstructed non-neurogenic bladder remains largely unknown. Clinical studies divulged a significant correlation between reduced bladder blood flow and low bladder compliance. Animal models of bladder ischemia displayed structural modifications, characterized by loss of smooth muscle cells and accumulation of connective tissue in the bladder wall.

The status of semantic memory in medial temporal lobe amnesia varies with demands on scene construction.

Semantic memory is typically preserved in medial temporal lobe (MTL) amnesia. However, there are instances of impairment, such as in the recall of semantic narratives. As some forms of semantic knowledge play out in a spatial context, one possible explanation is that semantic memory impairments, when observed, relate to demands on scene construction - the ability to bind and maintain spatial information in a coherent representation.

Deprescribing for Community-Dwelling Older Adults: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Background: Polypharmacy and use of inappropriate medications have been linked to increased risk of falls, hospitalizations, cognitive impairment, and death. The primary objective of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness, comparative effectiveness, and harms of deprescribing interventions among community-dwelling older adults.

Methods: We searched OVID MEDLINE Embase, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Library from 1990 through February 2019 for controlled clinical trials comparing any deprescribing intervention to usual care or another intervention.

Weekly Changes in Blame and PTSD Among Active-Duty Military Personnel Receiving Cognitive Processing Therapy.

Both negative posttraumatic cognitions and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms decrease over the course of cognitive-behavior therapy for PTSD; however, further research is needed to determine whether cognitive change precedes and predicts symptom change. The present study examined whether weekly changes in blame predicted subsequent changes in PTSD symptoms over the course of cognitive processing therapy (CPT). Participants consisted of 321 active duty U.

An epigenome-wide association study of posttraumatic stress disorder in US veterans implicates several new DNA methylation loci.

Background: Previous studies using candidate gene and genome-wide approaches have identified epigenetic changes in DNA methylation (DNAm) associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Methods: In this study, we performed an EWAS of PTSD in a cohort of Veterans (n = 378 lifetime PTSD cases and 135 controls) from the Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders (TRACTS) cohort assessed using the Illumina EPIC Methylation BeadChip which assesses DNAm at more than 850,000 sites throughout the genome. Our model included covariates for ancestry, cell heterogeneity, sex, age, and a smoking score based on DNAm at 39 smoking-associated CpGs.

Relational processing in the semantic domain is impaired in medial temporal lobe amnesia.

It has been argued that the hippocampus supports cognition by virtue of its role in flexibly binding together distinct elements of experience. Such 'relational processing' enables us to (re)construct episodic representations of real or imagined events. The present study examined whether hippocampally mediated relational processing also contributes to the construction of semantic representations.