Rumination in bipolar disorder: evidence for an unquiet mind

Depression in bipolar disorder has long been thought to be a state characterized by mental inactivity. However, recent research demonstrates that patients with bipolar disorder engage in rumination, a form of self-focused repetitive cognitive activity, in depressed as well as in manic states. While rumination has long been associated with depressed states in major depressive disorder, the finding that patients with bipolar disorder ruminate in manic states is unique to bipolar disorder and challenges explanations put forward for why people ruminate. We review the research on rumination in bipolar disorder and propose that rumination in bipolar disorder, in both manic and depressed states, reflects executive dysfunction. We also review the neurobiology of bipolar disorder and recent neuroimaging studies of rumination, which is consistent with our hypothesis that the tendency to ruminate reflects executive dysfunction in bipolar disorder. Finally, we relate the neurobiology of rumination to the neurobiology of emotion regulation, which is disrupted in bipolar disorder

Efficiency or bounded rationality? Drivers of firm diversification strategies in Vietnam

Considering the case of diversified firms within a developing/transition country such as Vietnam, this paper investigates diversification relatedness while taking into account both firm- and industry-specific components. The high volatility of the dynamics of diversification observed in Vietnam suggests the hypothesis that firms decide to enter into new industries following a trial and error process, initiated by boundedly rational herding behaviors, i.e., firms follow the most commonly observed business combinations. Using a survivor-based (SB) measure of relatedness, we test the hypothesis of boundedly rational behavior. We find that both the probability of exit and the different performance measures (Return on sales and Total factor productivity) are not or are negatively correlated with SB-related diversification. This is in contrast to what has been observed in developed countries. However, using the SIC distance approach, we obtain the expected positive relationship between performance and relatedness in diversified firms. The conflicting result between these two relatedness indices therefore suggests there has been a trend in follow-up among inexperienced firms that imitate the direction and intensity of the diversification of dominating players within the industry (herd behavior). However, diversified firms gain experience over time and choose more efficient business combinations in subsequent entries. When we use the classical SIC-based approach, we find that greater diversification raises profitability, but only to an optimum relatedness point, beyond which the positive effect fades away. To control for the endogeneity of diversification relatedness and the serial correlation in error terms, we adopt an instrumental-variable two-stage least-squares estimation approach (IV-2SLS) with GMM treatment

Effectiveness of Interventions Promoting HIV Serostatus Disclosure to Sexual Partners: A Systematic Review

Disclosure of HIV serostatus to sexual partners is mandated within certain states in the United States and other countries. Despite these laws implemented and public health efforts to increase disclosure, rates of disclosure to sexual partners among people living with HIV (PLWH) remain low, suggesting the need for interventions to assist PLWH with the disclosure process. We conducted a systematic review of studies testing whether HIV serostatus disclosure interventions increase disclosure to sexual partners. We searched six electronic databases and screened 484 records. Five studies published between 2005 and 2012 met inclusion criteria and were included in this review. Results showed that three of the HIV serostatus disclosure-related intervention studies were efficacious in promoting disclosure to sexual partners. Although all three studies were conducted in the United States the intervention content and measurements of disclosure across the studies varied, so broad conclusions are not possible. The findings suggest that more rigorous HIV serostatus disclosure-related intervention trials targeting different populations in the United States and abroad are needed to facilitate disclosure to sexual partners

Spatially clustered loci with multiple enhancers are frequent targets of HIV-1 integration

HIV-1 recurrently targets active genes and integrates in the proximity of the nuclear pore compartment in CD4+ T cells. However, the genomic features of these genes and the relevance of their transcriptional activity for HIV-1 integration have so far remained unclear. Here we show that recurrently targeted genes are proximal to super-enhancer genomic elements and that they cluster in specific spatial compartments of the T cell nucleus. We further show that these gene clusters acquire their location during the activation of T cells. The clustering of these genes along with their transcriptional activity are the major determinants of HIV-1 integration in T cells. Our results provide evidence of the relevance of the spatial compartmentalization of the genome for HIV-1 integration, thus further strengthening the role of nuclear architecture in viral infection.This work was supported by German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) Thematic Translational Unit HIV-1 04.704 Infrastructural Measure to M.L. and by the Hector Grant M70 “HiPNose: HiV Positioning in the Nuclear Space” to M.L. and M.S. We acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (“Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013–2017,” Plan Nacional BFU2012–37168), of the CERCA (Centres de Recerca de Catalunya) Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya, and of the European Research Council (Synergy Grant 609989). K.V. and M.K. are supported by the European Structural and Investment Funds grant for the Croatian National Centre of Research Excellence in Personalized Healthcare (contract #KK.01.1.1.01.0010), Croatian National Centre of Research Excellence for Data Science and Advanced Cooperative Systems (contract KK.01.1.1.01.0009), and Croatian Science Foundation (grant IP-2014–09–6400)