Changes in positive and negative voice content in cognitive‐behavioural therapy for distressing voices

Objective People who experience distressing voices frequently report negative (e.g. abusive or threatening) voice content and this is a key driver of distress. There has also been recognition that positive (e.g. reassuring, or guiding) voice content contributes to better outcomes. Despite this, voice content has been neglected as a standalone outcome in evaluations of psychological therapies for distressing voices. We aimed to examine whether a modular cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) intervention for voices led to changes in negative and positive voice content. Design/Methods In a naturalistic, uncontrolled pre- and post- service evaluation study, 32 clients at an outpatient psychology service for distressing voices received eight sessions of CBT for distressing voices and completed self-report measures of negative and positive voice content at pre-, mid- and post- therapy. Results There was no significant change in positive voice content. There was no significant change in negative voice content from pre- to post-therapy; however, there was a significant change in negative voice content between mid and post-treatment in which the cognitive therapy component was delivered. The CBT treatment was also associated with significant changes in routinely reported outcomes of voice-related distress and voice severity. Conclusions The cognitive component of CBT for distressing voices may be associated with changes in negative, but not positive, voice content. There may be benefit to enhancing these effects by developing treatments targeting specific processes involved in negative and positive voice content and further exploring efficacy in well-powered, controlled trials with more comprehensive measures of voice content

Learning during visual search in children with attentional and learning problems: a trial to trial evaluation of RT and ERP measures.

Trial to trial Event Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded from children with attentional problems (APs), learning problems (LPs), and from children without these problems (NCs). The task required the subjects to memorize two figures and to selectively respond to their occurrence in a series of stimuli. Stimuli consisted of a display of figures at eight locations in a circle, whereby the targets were presented at a random or a fixed location. Learning from knowledge of prior displays was possible only in the fixed condition. Learning during presentation of the fixed series was manifest in several components. A Slow Wave (SW) difference between series, initially not present, developed within seven trials, and thus corresponded to the rapidity with which the reaction times (RTs) decreased over trials. A larger occipital SW difference was discovered in AP children and a larger frontocentral one in LP children compared to normals. The latency of this SW and the P300 difference between series were delayed with about 200 msec in APs compared to NCs. The task difference in the earliest component, the P120, that increased after behavioral task acquisition was completed, was seen in normal children only. This probably reflected feature-specific (location) attentional demands, that decreased slowly in normal children when the task became more predictable following a number of trials. Task differences of the N200, possibly reflecting covert orienting of attention, were initially smaller in APs and LPs than those of NCs, but they increased in APs (and in LPs more slowly) over trials. Differences were found for parietal amplitudes of the P300 in LPs and NCs, but not for APs. We concluded that AP children show early deficits that could originate from a limited capacity in focussing attention, which in turn prolongs stimulus evaluation. All subsequent processes are delayed by a similar amount of time. In addition, the relatively small frontocentral ERP's of the AP group suggest diminished frontal functioning. Problems in task acquisition and a prolonged process of memory updating might be induced by the slow adaptation to task differences in LP's, and delayed parietal SWs during task acquisition together with a marked frontocentral distribution and no RT difference

Glycemic index, glycemic load and glycemic response: An International Scientific Consensus Summit from the International Carbohydrate Quality Consortium (ICQC)

Abstract Background and aims The positive and negative health effects of dietary carbohydrates are of interest to both researchers and consumers. Methods International experts on carbohydrate research held a scientific summit in Stresa, Italy, in June 2013 to discuss controversies surrounding the utility of the glycemic index (GI), glycemic load (GL) and glycemic response (GR). Results The outcome was a scientific consensus statement which recognized the importance of postprandial glycemia in overall health, and the GI as a valid and reproducible method of classifying carbohydrate foods for this purpose. There was consensus that diets low in GI and GL were relevant to the prevention and management of diabetes and coronary heart disease, and probably obesity. Moderate to weak associations were observed for selected cancers. The group affirmed that diets low in GI and GL should always be considered in the context of diets otherwise understood as healthy, complementing additional ways of characterizing carbohydrate foods, such as fiber and whole grain content. Diets of low GI and GL were considered particularly important in individuals with insulin resistance. Conclusions Given the high prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes worldwide and the consistency of the scientific evidence reviewed, the expert panel confirmed an urgent need to communicate information on GI and GL to the general public and health professionals, through channels such as national dietary guidelines, food composition tables and food labels

The preview study: Metabolic outcomes in overweight, prediabetic individuals after an 8-week low calorie diet

Abstracts / Journal of Nutrition & Intermediary Metabolism 8 (2017)Peer reviewe

Nutritional approaches to breaking the intergenerational cycle of obesity

The link between poor maternal nutrition and an increased burden of disease in subsequent generations has been widely demonstrated in both human and animal studies. Historically, the nutritional challenges experienced by pregnant and lactating women were largely those of insufficient calories and severe micronutrient deficiencies. More recently, however, Western societies have been confronted with a new nutritional challenge; that of maternal obesity and excessive maternal intake of calories, fat, and sugar. Exposure of the developing fetus and infant to this obesogenic environment results in an increased risk of obesity and metabolic disease later in life. Furthermore, increased caloric, fat, and sugar intake can occur in conjunction with micronutrient deficiency, which may further exacerbate these programming effects. In light of the current epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease, attention has now turned to identifying nutritional interventions for breaking this intergenerational obesity cycle. In this review, we discuss the approaches that have been explored to date and highlight the need for further research.Beverly S. Muhlhausler, Jessica R. Gugusheff, Zhi Yi Ong and Mini A. Vithayathi

A contracting model for flexible distributed scheduling

We are interested in building systems of autonomous agents that can automate routine information processing activities in human organizations. Computational infrastructures for cooperative work should contain embedded agents for handling many routine tasks [9], but as the number of agents increases and the agents become geographically and/or conceptually dispersed, supervision of the agents will become increasingly problematic. We argue that agents should be provided with deep domain knowledge that allows them to make quantitatively justifiable decisions, rather than shallow models of users to mimic. In this paper, we use the application domain of distributed meeting scheduling to investigate how agents embodying deeper domain knowledge can choose among alternative strategies for searching their calendars in order to create flexible schedules within reasonable cost.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44288/1/10479_2005_Article_BF02187332.pd

A First Search for coincident Gravitational Waves and High Energy Neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007

We present the results of the first search for gravitational wave bursts associated with high energy neutrinos. Together, these messengers could reveal new, hidden sources that are not observed by conventional photon astronomy, particularly at high energy. Our search uses neutrinos detected by the underwater neutrino telescope ANTARES in its 5 line configuration during the period January - September 2007, which coincided with the fifth and first science runs of LIGO and Virgo, respectively. The LIGO-Virgo data were analysed for candidate gravitational-wave signals coincident in time and direction with the neutrino events. No significant coincident events were observed. We place limits on the density of joint high energy neutrino - gravitational wave emission events in the local universe, and compare them with densities of merger and core-collapse events.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, science summary page at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5LV_ANTARES/index.php. Public access area to figures, tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120000

TGF-β in tolerance, development and regulation of immunity

AbstractThe TGF-β superfamily is an ancient metazoan protein class which cuts across cell and tissue differentiation, developmental biology and immunology. Its many members are regulated at multiple levels from intricate control of gene transcription, post-translational processing and activation, and signaling through overlapping receptor structures and downstream intracellular messengers. We have been interested in TGF-β homologues firstly as key players in the induction of immunological tolerance, the topic so closely associated with Ray Owen. Secondly, our interests in how parasites may manipulate the immune system of their host has also brought us to study the TGF-β pathway in infections with longlived, essentially tolerogenic, helminth parasites. Finally, within the spectrum of mammalian TGF-β proteins is an exquisitely tightly-regulated gene, anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), whose role in sex determination underpins the phenotype of freemartin calves that formed the focus of Ray’s seminal work on immunological tolerance