Improving Quality of Life for Patients With Major Depressive Disorder by Increasing Hope and Positive Expectations With Future Directed Therapy (FDT).
Improving Quality of Life for Patients with Major Depressive Disorder by Increasing Hope and Positive Expectations with Future Directed Therapy (FDT).
Innov Clin Neurosci. 2013 Mar; 10(3): 12-22
Vilhauer JS, Cortes J, Moali N, Chung S, Mirocha J, Ishak WW
Objective: Impaired quality of life is a significant problem for people with major depressive disorder and is often not addressed through symptom remediation alone. This study examines a new therapy for the treatment for depression that focuses on reducing hopelessness and increasing positive future anticipation, which are factors posited to contribute to quality of life. The new treatment was compared to depressed patients in the same setting treated with group cognitive behavioral therapy. Design: This study used a quasi-experimental design to examine the differences between future directed therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy on improving quality of life in patients with major depressive disorder. The main variables assessed at pre and post-treatment were quality of life, depressive symptoms, and hopelessness. Setting: Outpatient Department of Psychiatry Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Participants: Twenty-two patients completed the future directed therapy intervention and 20 patients completed the cognitive behavioral therapy intervention. Measurements: Patient-reported outcomes were collected using the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptoms, the Beck Hopelessness Scale, and the Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire-Short Form. Results: Though both treatments were effective at improving depression, hopelessness and positive future anticipation, those patients treated with future directed therapy demonstrated significant improvements in quality of life (p=0.002) while those treated in the cognitive behavioral therapy group did not (p=0.463). The magnitude of change for the main variables was significantly larger in the future directed therapy group and change in hopelessness and change in positive anticipation predicted change in quality of life in the future directed therapy group but not the cognitive behavioral therapy group. Conclusions: Future directed therapy is a useful treatment for patients with major depressive disorder and quality of life impairment. HubMed – depression
Subjectively reported symptoms in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation and emotional distress.
Front Psychol. 2013; 4: 192
Kupper N, van den Broek KC, Widdershoven J, Denollet J
Background: Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) are characterized by emotional distress and poor quality of life. Little is known about the relation between emotional distress and subjectively reported AF symptoms. Our aims were to compare emotional distress levels in AF patients with distress levels in the general population and to examine the cross-sectional and prospective relationship between subjective AF symptom reports and emotional distress around electrical cardioversion (ECV). Methods: At baseline, this study included 118 patients with persistent AF planned for ECV (aged 68?±?10?years, 60% men) in which depression (BDI), anxiety (STAI), Type D personality (DS14), perceived stress (PSS-10), and AF symptoms (ATSSS) were assessed. The prospective substudy included 52 patients. Objective AF status was determined by ECG. Results: AF patients experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety (p?HubMed – depression
A model of microsaccade-related neural responses induced by short-term depression in thalamocortical synapses.
Front Comput Neurosci. 2013; 7: 47
Yuan WJ, Dimigen O, Sommer W, Zhou C
Microsaccades during fixation have been suggested to counteract visual fading. Recent experiments have also observed microsaccade-related neural responses from cellular record, scalp electroencephalogram (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The underlying mechanism, however, is not yet understood and highly debated. It has been proposed that the neural activity of primary visual cortex (V1) is a crucial component for counteracting visual adaptation. In this paper, we use computational modeling to investigate how short-term depression (STD) in thalamocortical synapses might affect the neural responses of V1 in the presence of microsaccades. Our model not only gives a possible synaptic explanation for microsaccades in counteracting visual fading, but also reproduces several features in experimental findings. These modeling results suggest that STD in thalamocortical synapses plays an important role in microsaccade-related neural responses and the model may be useful for further investigation of behavioral properties and functional roles of microsaccades. HubMed – depression
Motor learning of mice lacking cerebellar Purkinje cells.
Front Neuroanat. 2013; 7: 4
Porras-García ME, Ruiz R, Pérez-Villegas EM, Armengol JÁ
The cerebellum plays a key role in the acquisition and execution of motor tasks whose physiological foundations were postulated on Purkinje cells’ long-term depression (LTD). Numerous research efforts have been focused on understanding the cerebellum as a site of learning and/or memory storage. However, the controversy on which part of the cerebellum participates in motor learning, and how the process takes place, remains unsolved. In fact, it has been suggested that cerebellar cortex, deep cerebellar nuclei, and/or their combination with some brain structures other than the cerebellum are responsible for motor learning. Different experimental approaches have been used to tackle this question (cerebellar lesions, pharmacological agonist and/or antagonist of cerebellar neurotransmitters, virus tract tracings, etc.). One of these approaches is the study of spontaneous mutations affecting the cerebellar cortex and depriving it of its main input-output organizer (i.e., the Purkinje cell). In this review, we discuss the results obtained in our laboratory in motor learning of both Lurcher (Lc/+) and tambaleante (tbl/tbl) mice as models of Purkinje-cell-devoid cerebellum. HubMed – depression
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