Self‐compassion and emotion regulation difficulties in obsessive–compulsive disorder

Lack of self‐compassion and deficits in emotion regulation are associated with various psychopathological symptoms and may play a role in the development and maintenance of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). However, further empirical research is still needed to better understand these constructs in the context of this disorder. The present study investigated the relation between self‐compassion, emotion regulation difficulties, obsessive beliefs, and obsessive–compulsive symptom severity in 90 patients with OCD using self‐report questionnaires. Symptom severity and obsessive beliefs were negatively correlated to self‐compassion and positively associated with emotion regulation difficulties. Additionally, self‐compassion showed a negative relation to emotion regulation difficulties. Emotion regulation difficulties—but not self‐compassion—predicted symptom severity when controlling for obsessive beliefs and depression in a hierarchical regression analysis. Further analyses showed that emotion regulation deficits mediated the relationship between self‐compassion and OCD symptom severity. Our results provide preliminary evidence that targeting self‐compassion and putting more emphasis on emotion regulation deficits might be promising treatment approaches for patients with OCD. Future studies could investigate which specific interventions that directly address these variables improve treatment outcome

Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Right Supramarginal Gyrus and Empathic Evaluation

Das Ziel dieser Studie war die Untersuchung inwiefern der rechte supramarginale Gyrus (rSMG) an unseren empathischen Beurteilungen beteiligt ist. Es wird angenommen, dass der rSMG wichtig für unser Verständnis der emotionalen Bedeutung von fremdbezogenen Informationen ist. Das Experiment wurde in einem „Within-Subjects“ Design durchgeführt. Vierzig jungen Frauen wurde an zwei separaten Untersuchungstagen „continuous Theta Burst Stimulation (cTBS)“ einmal am rSMG und einmal am Vertex (Kontrollbedingung) verabreicht. Anschließend bearbeiteten die Versuchsteilnehmerinnen eine Aufgabe bei der sie gleichzeitig mit selbst- und fremdbezogenen emotional bedeutsamen Reizen konfrontiert wurden und fremdbezogene Emotionsbeurteilungen abgeben sollten. Angenehme und unangenehme selbst- und fremdbezogene Reize wurden eingesetzt. Dies verursachte teilweise übereinstimmende und teilweise nicht übereinstimmende Gemütszustände zwischen den Teilnehmerinnen und den Personen, auf welche sich die empathischen Beurteilungen bezogen. Nach der Verabreichung von cTBS am rSMG beurteilten die Versuchsteilnehmerinnen fremdbezogene angenehme Reize als weniger intensiv. Es gab keine einheitlichen Effekte von cTBS bezüglich der empathischen Evaluation von unangenehmen Reizen. Es scheint, als ob cTBS von Versuchsperson zu Versuchsperson unterschiedliche Effekte nach sich zog. Trotz uneinheitlicher Ergebnisse schlussfolgern wir, dass der rSMG in den Integrationsprozessen von selbst- und fremdbezogenen Informationen involviert ist. Diese Integrationsprozesse scheinen sowohl für empathische Beurteilungen als auch für das eigene emotionale Erleben relevant zu sein.The aim of this study was to further investigate the extent to what the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) is involved in our empathic evaluation. We supposed that the rSMG is crucial for the comprehension of the emotional relevance of other-related information. The study was conducted in a within-subjects design. In two separate sessions, we once applied continuous Theta Burst Stimulation (cTBS) on the rSMG and once on the vertex (control condition) on 40 young females. Afterwards, we measured other-related emotion intensity ratings in a task in which participants were presented with emotion eliciting other and self-related stimuli at the same time. Pleasant and unpleasant stimuli were used, leading to congruent and incongruent affective states between the participants and the persons they had to empathize with. After cTBS of rSMG, participants specifically evaluated other-related pleasant stimuli as less intensive. Regarding unpleasant stimuli, the effect of cTBS was more ambiguous and not exclusive to other-related judgements. Furthermore, cTBS might have affected participants with certain inter-individual variability. Despite partially heterogeneous results, we conclude that the rSMG is involved in integration processes concerning self and other-related information. These processes seem to be relevant for our empathic as well as our general emotional evaluation

Analysis of a New Space-Time Parallel Multigrid Algorithm for Parabolic Problems

We present and analyze a new space-time parallel multigrid method for parabolic equations. The method is based on arbitrarily high order discontinuous Galerkin discretizations in time and a finite element discretization in space. The key ingredient of the new algorithm is a block Jacobi smoother. We present a detailed convergence analysis when the algorithm is applied to the heat equation and determine asymptotically optimal smoothing parameters, a precise criterion for semi-coarsening in time or full coarsening, and give an asymptotic two grid contraction factor estimate. We then explain how to implement the new multigrid algorithm in parallel and show with numerical experiments its excellent strong and weak scalability properties.</p

Serum thymidine kinase 1 activity as a pharmacodynamic marker of cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibition in patients with early-stage breast cancer receiving neoadjuvant palbociclib

Abstract Background Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is a cell cycle-regulated enzyme with peak expression in the S phase during DNA synthesis, and it is an attractive biomarker of cell proliferation. Serum TK1 activity has demonstrated prognostic value in patients with early-stage breast cancer. Because cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors prevent G1/S transition, we hypothesized that serum TK1 could be a biomarker for CDK4/6 inhibitors. We examined the drug-induced change in serum TK1 as well as its correlation with change in tumor Ki-67 levels in patients enrolled in the NeoPalAna trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01723774). Methods Patients with clinical stage II/III estrogen receptor-positive (ER+)/HER2-negative breast cancer enrolled in the NeoPalAna trial received an initial 4 weeks of anastrozole, followed by palbociclib on cycle 1, day 1 (C1D1) for four 28-day cycles, unless C1D15 tumor Ki-67 was > 10%, in which case patients went off study owing to inadequate response. Surgery occurred following 3–5 weeks of washout from the last dose of palbociclib, except in eight patients who received palbociclib (cycle 5) continuously until surgery. Serum TK1 activity was determined at baseline, C1D1, C1D15, and time of surgery, and we found that it was correlated with tumor Ki-67 and TK1 messenger RNA (mRNA) levels. Results Despite a significant drop in tumor Ki-67 with anastrozole monotherapy, there was no statistically significant change in TK1 activity. However, a striking reduction in TK1 activity was observed 2 weeks after initiation of palbociclib (C1D15), which then rose significantly with palbociclib washout. At C1D15, TK1 activity was below the detection limit (<20 DiviTum units per liter Du/L) in 92% of patients, indicating a profound effect of palbociclib. There was high concordance, at 89.8% (95% CI: 79.2% - 96.2%), between changes in serum TK1 and tumor Ki-67 in the same direction from C1D1 to C1D15 and from C1D15 to surgery time points. The sensitivity and specificity for the tumor Ki-67-based response by palbociclib-induced decrease in serum TK1 were 94.1% (95% CI 86.2% - 100%) and 84% (95% CI 69.6% -98.4%), respectively. The κ-statistic was 0.76 (p < 0.001) between TK1 and Ki-67, indicating substantial agreement. Conclusions Serum TK1 activity is a promising pharmacodynamic marker of palbociclib in ER+ breast cancer, and its value in predicting response to CDK4/6 inhibitors warrants further investigation. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01723774. Registered on 6 November 2012