Experimental effects of mindfulness inductions on self-regulation: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Self-regulation is the control of aspects of the self to allow pursuit of long-term goals, and it is proposed as a central pathway through which mindfulness may exert benefits on well-being. However, the effects of a single mindfulness induction on self-regulation are not clear, as there has been no comprehensive review of this evidence. The current review synthesized existing findings relating to the effect of a mindfulness induction delivered in a laboratory setting on measures of self-regulation. Twenty-seven studies were included and grouped according to 3 outcomes: regulation of experimentally induced negative affect (k = 15; meta-analysis), emotion-regulation strategies (k = 7) and executive functions (k = 9; narrative synthesis). A mindfulness induction was superior to comparison groups in enhancing the regulation of negative affect (d = -.28). Executive-function performance was enhanced only when the experimental design included an affect induction or when the outcome was sustained attention. The effect on emotion-regulation strategies was inconclusive, but with emerging evidence for an effect on rumination. Overall, the findings indicate that, in the form of an induction, mindfulness may have the most immediate effect on attention mechanisms rather than exerting cognitive changes in other domains, as are often reported outcomes of longer mindfulness training. Through effecting change in attention, emotion regulation of negative affect can be enhanced, and subsequently, executive-function performance more quickly restored. The interpretations of the findings are caveated with consideration of the low quality of many of the included study designs determined by the quality appraisal tool

Induction of apoptosis in rat peripheral blood lymphocytes by the anticancer drug CI-994 (acetyldinaline)

ABSTRACT: CI-994 (acetyldinaline) is an investigational anticancer drug currently in clinical trials. In preclinical safety studies in rats and dogs, CI-994 resulted in significant toxicity to bone marrow and lymphoid tissue. To determine if apoptosis was involved in CI-994 toxicity, peripheral blood lymphocytes were isolated from untreated male Wistar rats and exposed to CI-994 (1, 3, 10, or 30 μM) in vitro for up to 24 hours. Morphological and biochemical features of apoptosis were evaluated using several techniques, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release was measured as an indicator of cell necrosis. No evidence of apoptosis or necrosis was detected in lymphocytes exposed to CI-994 for 4 hours. After 24 hours, concentration-dependent increases in apoptosis characterized by DNA condensation, DNA fragmentation, and/or externalization of phosphatidyl serine were seen at CI-994 concentrations as low as 1 μM and were statistically significant beginning at 10 μM. Ultrastructural analysis confirmed the presence of DNA condensation, DNA fragmentation, cell shrinkage, and membrane blebbing in cells exposed to 30 μM CI-994. After 24 hours, the percent of maximum LDH release from lymphocytes treated with 10 and 30 μM CI-994 was 7% and 15%, respectively, compared with 0% in the controls. In comparison, morphological changes of apoptosis detected by fluorescent microscopy were observed in 79% of the lymphocytes at these two concentrations. Additionally, apoptosis was seen in more than 24% of lymphocytes exposed to 1 and 3 μM CI-994, whereas maximum LDH release was less than or equal to 1% at these concentrations. These results show that apoptosis is the primary mode of cell death in rat lymphocytes exposed to CI-994 in vitro

Determining Satisfaction with Access and Financial Aspects of Care for Persons Exposed to Libby Amphibole Asbestos: Rural and National Environmental Policy Implications

Libby, Montana is a Superfund site and epicenter of one of the worst environmental disasters in the USA history in terms of asbestos-related mortality and morbidity. Perceptions of access and financial aspects of care were explored among a national cohort of persons postasbestos exposure and prior to a 2009 Public Health Emergency Declaration. Our findings indicated the Libby cohort was significantly less satisfied with access and financial aspects of care as measured by two PSQ-III scales when compared to an adult, chronically ill patient sample. Participants with higher levels of respiratory morbidity and depression had significantly lower satisfaction scores

Perceptions of sleep in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and the acceptability of sleep interventions in routine care: A qualitative study

There have been increased calls to manage poor sleep in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) care. However, it’s unclear how people with IBD perceive their sleep to fit within their experience of IBD and whether interventions to improve sleep are acceptable. This qualitative study found that people with IBD perceive their sleep to be an integral part of living with IBD, would like more sleep support than is currently available, and find interventions for sleep broadly acceptable. It is important for future research to tailor sleep interventions towards those with IBD and explore the barriers to sleep support in routine care</p

Coupling to short linear motifs creates versatile PME-1 activities in PP2A holoenzyme demethylation and inhibition

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) holoenzymes target broad substrates by recognizing short motifs via regulatory subunits. PP2A methylesterase 1 (PME-1) is a cancer-promoting enzyme and undergoes methylesterase activation upon binding to the PP2A core enzyme. Here, we showed that PME-1 readily demethylates different families of PP2A holoenzymes and blocks substrate recognition in vitro. The high-resolution cryoelectron microscopy structure of a PP2A-B56 holoenzyme–PME-1 complex reveals that PME-1 disordered regions, including a substrate-mimicking motif, tether to the B56 regulatory subunit at remote sites. They occupy the holoenzyme substrate-binding groove and allow large structural shifts in both holoenzyme and PME-1 to enable multipartite contacts at structured cores to activate the methylesterase. B56 interface mutations selectively block PME-1 activity toward PP2A-B56 holoenzymes and affect the methylation of a fraction of total cellular PP2A. The B56 interface mutations allow us to uncover B56-specific PME-1 functions in p53 signaling. Our studies reveal multiple mechanisms of PME-1 in suppressing holoenzyme functions and versatile PME-1 activities derived from coupling substrate-mimicking motifs to dynamic structured cores

Gertrude Robinson Correspondence

Entries include brief biographical information, a typed biography, years of typed and handwritten letters on plain and graph paper stationery, expressive accounts of time spent at her summer home on Orr\u27s Island, Maine, a typed plain postcard explaining that she had written a recent book draft after a New York bus accident, correspondence concerning her work with Books Across the Sea aiding the visiting Cornish historian Rowse in research with Day of the English-Speaking Union, and a typed letter from the Tompkins Square House on Community Service Center stationery from Bollettino providing information on Robinson\u27s recent passing

Cornish identities and migration: a multi-scalar approach

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com. 24 month embargo by the publisher. Article will be released July 2009.In this article we argue that theories of transnationalism have value in exploring the historical context of migration and that historical contexts help to shape such theoretical conceptualizations. Historians of migration have now begun to engage more directly with the literature of transnationalism, focusing on the networks that linked settler and home communities. Here we add to this by examining a nineteenth-century migrant community from a British region through the lens of transnationalism, applying the concept to the case of the Cornish, whose economic specialization produced culturally distinct Cornish communities on the mining frontiers of North America, Australia and South Africa. In doing so, we bring together the issues of scale and time. We review the multiple levels of the Cornish transnational space of the late nineteenth century, which exhibited aspects of both core transnationalism and translocalism. This waned, but in the later twentieth century, a renewed interest in a transnational Cornish identity re-emerged, articulating with changing identity claims in Cornwall itself. To capture better the experience of the Cornish over these two very different phases of transnationalism we identify another subset of transnationalism - that of transregionalism.Leverhulme Trus