Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on sleep quality in university students and administration staff

Journal of Neurology - In Italy, lockdown due to COVID-19 health emergency started on March 10 and partially ended on May 3rd, 2020. There was a significant increase of psychological distress and...     

The effect of desire thinking on facilitating beliefs in alcohol use disorder: An experimental investigation

Permissive beliefs relate to the acceptability of engaging in alcohol use in spite of obvious potential negative consequences. They are considered the most proximal and precipitating cognitive factor in the decision to use alcohol and/or the activation of strategies to obtain it. Recent research suggested that ‘desire thinking’ may be involved in the escalation of craving and addictive behaviours and can play a role in strengthening permissive beliefs. The current study tested whether the induction of desire thinking would have a stronger effect on rate of conviction in permissive beliefs compared to a control cognitive response in the form of neutral thinking and whether this effect would be specific for patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Thirty AUD patients and 30 social drinkers (SD) were randomly allocated to two thinking manipulation tasks (desire thinking and neutral thinking). Current permissive beliefs were measured before and after manipulation and after a resting phase. Findings showed that desire thinking increased the level of current permissive beliefs after manipulation relative to the neutral thinking condition for the AUD group but not for the SD group. This effect was not purely dependent on the concurrent level of perceived craving. This study supports a causal relationship between the induction of desire thinking and rate of conviction in permissive beliefs and highlights the relevance of targeting desire thinking in the treatment for AUD patients.     

Human Cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus specific immunity in patients with ulcerative colitis

Clinical and Experimental Medicine - Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) are endowed with the ability of establishing lifelong latency in human hosts and reactivating in...     

Schizophrenia and Metacognition: An Investigation of Course of Illness and Metacognitive Beliefs Within a First Episode Psychosis

Cognitive Therapy and Research - The Self Regulatory Executive Function (S-REF) model implicates maladaptive metacognitive beliefs and processes in the predisposition and/or maintenance of positive...     

Manganese superoxide dismutase activity and incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with Child-Pugh class A liver cirrhosis: a 7-year follow-up study.

AIMS: To evaluate possible modifications in the manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) activity during neoplastic transformation of a cirrhotic liver and to find out whether its assessment may have predictive value to identify cirrhotic patients at a higher risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: Seventy-one consecutive subjects with Child-Pugh class A liver cirrhosis were recruited. At the time of enrolment, HCC was diagnosed in 20 cirrhotic patients. The 51 cirrhotic patients without HCC were followed up for the occurrence of tumour by 6-monthly screening for 7 years. During follow-up, 16 patients developed HCC. Seventy healthy subjects formed the control group. MnSOD activity was assayed spectrophotometrically. RESULTS: Serum MnSOD activity was significantly lower in 70 healthy subjects compared with 51 cirrhotic patients and 20 cirrhotic patients with HCC. Cirrhotic patients who developed HCC during follow-up showed significantly higher values of MnSOD activity than HCC-free patients. The best cut-off of MnSOD activity was 0.40 U/ml. At this cut-off, chi2 analysis revealed that MnSOD activity was significantly different between the HCC-free cirrhotic patients and cirrhotic patients who developed HCC. CONCLUSION: The present findings suggest that during neoplastic transformation of cirrhotic liver, an increase in MnSOD activity may occur already during the precancerous phase, making this enzyme a probable malignancy-associated parameter.