A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world

Photosensitized Degradation of Model Lipid Membranes based on 1-palmitoyl-2-oleyl-phosphatidylcholine (POPC)

In this work, we study the interaction of a well-known photosensitizer, MePha, with models of biological membrane (Langmuir monolayers and Langmuir–Schaeffer planar bilayers) based on one of the most important natural lipid, POPC, for the subsequent investigation of photodestruction processes in a context of photodynamic therapy treatment. Changes of macroscopic properties and morphology of POPC/MePha model membranes upon irradiation by visible light are recorded by means of contact angle measurements and atomic force microscopy, demonstrating clearly the possibility to use these methods for the study of photodestruction of artificial lipid membranes on solid substrates, but also for a comparative study of the efficiency of novel photosensitizers