Cognitive and behavioral changes related to symptom improvement among patients with a mood disorder receiving intensive cognitive-behavioral therapy.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between cognitive and behavioral changes associated with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and treatment response in an intensive partial hospital (PH) setting. METHODS: Study participants were 105 patients with mood disorders receiving treatment in a private psychiatric PH setting. The flexible treatment model used evidence-based CBT interventions adapted to the PH context, with emphases on psychoeducation and skills training. Participants completed self-report measures at admission and discharge to assess psychological distress, depression, negative automatic thoughts, and behavioral activation. Mean treatment duration was 9 days. RESULTS: Decreased negative automatic thoughts and increased behavioral activation predicted reduction of depressive symptoms; however, only decreased negative automatic thoughts was predictive of patients' overall level of psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that a CBT intervention adapted for use in a PH setting can be an effective treatment for severe mood disorders. Furthermore, although the design used in this study precludes causal inferences, depressive symptom improvement appears to be associated with decreased negative automatic thoughts and increased behavioral activation. Implications for the delivery of CBT in PH programs and future directions for research are discussed.

Mindfulness in Thailand and the United States: a case of apples versus oranges?

The study and practice of mindfulness is rapidly expanding in Western psychology. Recently developed self-report measures of mindfulness were derived from Western operationalizations and cross-cultural validation of many of these measures is lacking, particularly in Buddhist cultures. Therefore, this study examined the measurement equivalence of the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) and Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) among Thai (n=385) and American (n=365) college students. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis models fit to the data revealed that the KIMS lacked configural invariance across groups, which precluded subsequent invariance tests, and although the MAAS demonstrated configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance, there was no significant latent mean MAAS difference between Thais and Americans. These findings suggest that Eastern and Western conceptualizations of mindfulness may have important differences.

Observations on the brain of the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae: External anatomy and quantitative analysis.

New data on the brain of Latimeria indicate that previous estimates of the brain weight were too high by a factor of two. Our data suggest a brain weight of 1.1-1.5 grams for a specimen with a body weight of 30 kilograms. Quantitative data on major divisions of the brain are presented for the first time, and the relative size of the major brain divisions is similar to that of sturgeons and generalized sharks (such as hexanchids and squalids). Examination of brain component weight (s): body weight plots in a sample of non-teleost actinopterygian fishes indicates that all major divisions of the brain, except the telencephalon, are larger than in Latimeria. Brain component sizes in Latimeria are more similar to those extrapolated for amphibian brains than to those for actinopterygians. However, the cerebellum of Latimeria is considerably larger than that of amphibians.