The Nature and Experience of Anxiety in Bipolar Disorder.

Anxiety experiences (defined either categorically as a disorder or on continua as symptoms) have been found to be highly prevalent in bipolar disorder (BD) and have been consistently associated with poorer outcomes. Current research in this area has primarily focused on prevalence rates of anxiety disorders and their association to retrospective outcomes. There is a lack of research regarding the psychological processes which may underlie the relationship between anxiety and bipolar mood experiences and current psychological models of BD have generally omitted anxiety in their explanations of mood swings. A qualitative meta-synthesis and semi-structured interviews were employed in this thesis to explore the lived experience of anxiety in BD. A longitudinal analysis of data from a large scale RCT was also conducted to assess a range of categorical and continuous measures of anxiety as predictors of outcome in BD. Finally, experience sampling methodology assessed momentary interactions between anxiety and affect in daily life for individuals with BD and non-clinical controls. Anxiety was found to be intrinsically linked to bipolar mood experiences across methodologies. Subjectively, anxiety was perceived as a trigger to both depressed and manic experiences. Anxiety about relapse due to extreme negative appraisals of mood swings was reported and impacted on several important life domains including quality of life, sleep, relationships and employment. Anxiety was consistently associated with increased depression and reduced functioning across all studies. Anxiety and mania were found to have both positive and negative associations across studies. The continuous measurement of anxiety, rather than categorical, was the most reliable predictor of outcome longitudinally when carefully controlling for a range of extraneous variables. The results provide support for anxiety as an intrinsic experience in BD and encourage the consideration of integrated psychological models and treatment approaches which include anxiety as a core feature of BD

Report of the 1st and 2nd Mystery of Reactive Oxygen Species Conferences

Non peer reviewe

Immobility in travel diary surveys

The share of immobile persons, i.e. persons not leaving their homes on a given reporting day, is both a central result and a prime quality indicator of a travel diary survey. The wide range of values for the share of immobiles reported in travel diary and time budget survey literature has motivated this in-depth analysis of the reasons for these disparities. This paper collates available evidence on the share of immobiles in travel diary surveys. The share of these non-travellers (UK), or no-trippers (US), varies greatly between otherwise similar surveys. After analysing both disaggregate and aggregate information, this paper concludes that the share of immobiles should be in the range of 8%–12% for the standard one-day, weekday-only travel diary. The analysis suggests that a substantial share of respondents refuse to participate in a soft way, i.e. by claiming not to have left the house. In its conclusions, the paper sketches new ways to reduce the share of such soft refusers during the interview and to identify them during the analysis. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Travel behaviour, Immobile, Non-traveller, No-tripper, Response behaviour, Travel diary, Disaggregate analysis, Meta-analysis, Verkehrsverhalten, immobil, Antwortverhalten, Wegetagebuch, disaggregierte Modelle, Meta-Analyse,

Regulation of major histocompatibility complex class II antigens on human alveolar macrophages by granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor in the presence of glucocorticoids

Alveolar macrophages (AM) present antigen poorly to CD4+ T cells and respond weakly to interferon-γ (IFN-γ) for up-regulation of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II and costimulatory molecule expression. In atopic asthma, however, AM exhibit enhanced antigen-presenting cell (APC) activity. Since granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is increased in the airways of asthmatic patients, we have investigated its role in modulating the APC function of AM. The effects of glucocorticoids were also studied since earlier studies showed optimal induction of MHC antigens on monocytes by GM-CSF in their presence. GM-CSF in the presence, but not the absence, of dexamethasone enhanced the expression of HLA-DR, -DP and -DQ antigens by AM. However AM and monocytes differed in the optimal concentration of steroid required to mediate this effect (10−10 m and 10−7 m, respectively). Induction of MHC antigens was glucocorticoid specific and independent of IFN-γ. These studies suggest the existence of an IFN-γ-independent pathway of macrophage activation, which may be important in regulating APC function within the lung